Forming in London in 1988 Terminal Cheesecake made waves releasing an uncompromising blend of psych, dub and industrial grooves across two EPs, six albums and a now infamous session for John Peel. Last year the band celebrated their reincarnation with the release of live album Cheese Brain Fondue: Live in Marseille released on US based label Artificial Head.
…in Dandelion Sauce of the Ancients we have their first studio recording since 1994’s King of All Spaceheads. The band haven’t made it back entirely intact however, with GNOD vocalist Neil Francis having taken over from Gary Boniface. It’s a match that makes perfect sense: the Cheesecake have a good argument for being the missing link between the British psych bands of the ’70s and today’s…
…noisier, wilder psych outfits like The Cosmic Dead, Blown Out and GNOD themselves. Both GNOD and Terminal Cheesecake bands share a great deal of DNA, both merrily engaging in genre splicing when the mood takes them and defaulting to a noisy, unhinged brand of psychedelia. Indeed opener ‘Birds in 6/8′ would probably sound like it could have been ripped straight from one of GNOD’s more guitar-centric releases even without Francis’ involvement.
His integration is helped by Terminal Cheesecake 2.0 abiding by that most prominent psych vocal cliche – no words, sung or otherwise, can be uttered in their world without being drenched in reverb andor delay, echoing off into eternity. It’s easy to sound like your predecessor when you’re both backgrounded and made to sound like your vocals are being piped in from another timeframe. But he gets their vibe too – on the brief but warped (and wonderfully titled) ‘Mr Wipey’s Day Trip to Guilford Haven’, the kind of sick gag track that’d fit right onto one of their 90s records, he quickly gets into the right frame of mind rambling about “the ice cream man with the dirtiest hands” over a deranged circus beat. And his feral screaming on nihilistic noise frenzy closer ‘Lord Jagged (The Chemical Teacake Quintet)’ shows this is not just a nice side gig for him. He’s willing to go all in for the cause.
Elsewhere however there is occasionally a surprising timidity to Dandelion Sauce of the Ancients, with things played a little too safe. ‘Poultice’ is fairly typical fuzzed out psych number that could have been laid down by any number of psych rock bands that formed in their wake. But even when they operate within such parameters they’re capable of showing their pedigree – it may not be innovative but the boys sure can jam. More impressive is ‘Dandelions’, which is on the surface another guitar heavy freak out, but one where the choice of tones, some of which are so abrasive it’s not unlike shoving your ears up against an industrial sander, elevate it into something more transcendental. Creating a psychedelic sound isn’t just about jamming aimlessly for a few minutes – by pushing the sonic envelope to the limits of tolerance they’re capable of shifting your headspace out of its comfort zone better than any sub-Hendrix prolonged soloing can. They repeat the trick to even greater effect on ‘Song for John Pt. 1’, a track which just builds and builds to a monolithic sonic assault of knuckle-dragging rhythms and coruscating guitar supernovas that once it’s over leaves you feeling altered, much like to the moment the credits role on a David Lynch film and you’re not quite sure how reality is meant to work anymore.