The person in the throes of mental agony depicted on the cover could be easily mistaken as a wayward hiker taking a particularly tough poop in the middle of the desert ' Spain's Glow do a pretty damn good job in interpreting the 70's doom thing without being totally derivative. You remember the greats of the 70's when they'd play live and not even look at the audience? They'd be in the middle of a jam, staring at each other and grinning (or cursing, depending if you had the Blackmore curse of personality or not) just vibing off of one another, becoming one musical unit versus 3 or 4 jack-offs that know how to play instruments. While listening to Gone?í I'm picturing the members of Glow doing that very thing ' looking at each other, half-smiles breaking out because they know they are now playing as a collective, the guitar player nodding over to the drummer because that particular cow bell fill was bad ass?í that's my dream, anyway. If you're gonna tackle the 70's doom vibe, a keen observation on juxtaposing big ol' negative riffs with more uplifting groove is a key element. This Glow do in spades?í all 8 tracks are doom/goove nuggets, 'Godfish? being particularly powerful in a 'Symptom of the Universe? kind of way, 'Oxigen? featuring a very nice jam-like midsection and 'Seasons? nailing the 'scorching 70's heavy rock guitar lead? thing. As a bonus, we get a cover of Vitus's 'Living Backwards? which is OK, but the video of the band rocking out to 'Godfish? is way more entertaining. G'dam, Ralph the singer sounds more and more like Las Cruces/ Blood of the Sun great frontman Mark Zammeron every time I hear him. Can two people be blessed with larynxes like that? I dunno. I'll wait until Mike Ballue spins this a couple of times and let him weigh in on this incisive and compelling question. Gone, But Not Forgotten is a great way to spend 43 minutes, by the way. The 70's doom thing doesn't get much better. And is sure does get a whole lot worse.
