Album Review: Orange Goblin -Time Travelling Blues

Sink your teeth into this tasty slice of stoner metal.  Although the band Orange Goblin keeps their music chilled out with a classic blues structure and sludgy tempo, the heavily distorted guitar riffs and gruff vocals result in a sound that is gloomy, doomy, and altogether ‘shroomy. The 1998 album Time Traveling Blues is defined by dreamy, distorted noisescapes of altered guitars, giving way to aggravated punk riffs, while screamed vocals remain constant and at the forefront of the musical dynamics. The lyrics are utter nonsense on the surface level, but quite poetic when one gets lost in the maze of metaphors. Orange Goblin have such a lackadaisical, impulsive grace as they carve their unique brand of psychedelia with the sleaze of rock n’ roll and the sheer weight of heavy metal.

The guitars are a very strong aspect of this album; the solos and instrumentals are both exceptional, and even the repetitive refrains are catchy and entertaining. The drums, though often lost in the background, are the ever-present bones of this beast. The sound production is impressive but not too clean, retaining some of the characteristic imperfections that make this album so lovable.

The music is almost too familiar, and once you catch the pattern of a certain song, it remains predictable, thus making many tracks sound alike.  Time Traveling Blues is a little rough around the edges, but that is actually part of its appeal. The comfortable chord progressions are a solid environment on which to build unusual solos and bizarre lyrical content.  You can find Time Traveling Blues and other Orange Goblin albums on their website. All things considered, this is a very well-rounded album, and it’s no wonder it has become a cult classic amongst fans of stoner metal and doom. Four stars out of five.