Dylan Carlson
CONQUISTADOR
SARGENT HOUSE EARTH MAINMAN RETURNS TO HIS REGULAR STATE OF REVERIE
After Earth’s uneven foray into droning hard rock with 2014’s Primitive And Deadly, and collaborating with electronic musician The Bug for last year’s Concrete Desert, Conquistador finds mainman Dylan Carlson back to doing what he arguably does best: parched, drone-heavy, meandering Americana. For those already familiar with Carlson’s ‘Drcarlsonalbion’ phase, and the bone-dry twang and wandering malaise of his soundtrack to the alt-western Gold in particular, Conquistador offers few surprises. The pulsing drone of layered guitars and brittle, monotonous movements of the title track sit somewhere between Earth’s last outing and Neil Young’s Dead
Man soundtrack, as does the broodingly repetitious Scorpions In Their Mouths and closer Reaching The Gulf. In between, Dylan does find room for uncomfortable noise à la Mule Variations-era Tom Waits with And Then The Crows Descended, which sounds like insects crawling out of your empty skull.
FOR FANS OF: NEIL YOUNG, GY!BE, TOM WAITS TOBY COOK