Florist |Adrift |Ripple Music (Reissue)

space of time they have built a name the old way, through DIY touring, festival slots and opening for Elder and Conan, with a live show that runs closer to a séance than a gig. "Adrift" is their second album, and Ripple Music now give it an LP and CD repress with worldwide distribution.

The sound is stoner-doom pushed sideways. Guitars drenched in fuzz, bass tuned down into the floorboards, and over the top of it Consoli's sitar and threads of theremin drifting through the haze like smoke off an altar. The whole thing is tuned to 432Hz, a choice that leaves everything sitting slightly off from what your ears expect and adds a queasy undertow to the heavy parts. Grooves move slowly and repeat until they take hold. Vocals come layered and half buried, more incantation than performance, and the eastern flavoured melodies are woven into the riffing instead of being dropped on top as decoration.

When Florist locks into a slow trance and let the low end do the work, this is genuinely strong material, and the moments where sitar and fuzz collide are worth the price on their own. Amador plays with a swing that stops the slower stretches from turning into sludge, and Roy's bass tone alone will keep the doom crowd happy. What holds it back is patience. Several tracks sit on one idea longer than that idea can hold, and the band reaches for the same hypnotic build often enough that the second half loses some of its pull.

The production is warm and analogue and lets the fuzz bloom, though it also smooths the edges in places where a bit of violence would have served better. Anyone rose on Sleep, Om, Wo Fat or Domkraft will find themselves on comfortable ground here, and there is real personality in the sitar and theremin that separates Florist from the endless line of bands doing Sabbath impressions. Three years into their existence, this is a band with a strange, heavy and legitimately immersive sound, arriving before they have entirely learned how to shape it.

|7.5