Review Summary: The Elephant Tree / Lowrider joint offering is fine, which is good enough for now
The Elephant Tree / Lowrider joint offering is fine, which is good enough for now. Once you delve into both band’s history a little bit, you might realize this album’s significance to both and its implications for the future of both acts.
Elephant Tree: After releasing their third album in 2020, the London-based prog/psyche doom metal band went into turmoil; at this point in time, shortly after the release of Habits, the band had split with their then label Holy Roar Records. In the midst of 2020’s lockdowns, the band had little opportunity to tour and support their newly released material, and so they partnered up with Sheep Tooth to help them promote the album. In 2021, just when some venues decided to open up spaces for gigs, the band was enlisted for Black Deer Festival which was already delayed in 2020. The following year, just when the band was returning to stage, guitarist Jack Townley suffered a near-fatal accident. He went into a critical but successful surgery. His recovery, of course, forced the band to go into full hiatus.
Lowrider: The Sweden stoner rock act released one album, Ode to Io, back in 2000. Shortly after, the band went into full hiatus. As time went on, the debut album began gaining “underground classic” status with no promotion from the band nor the then label, MeteorCity Records. After years of inactivity the band played at 2013 DesertFest Berlin. The overwhelmingly positive response of the crowd prompted the band to play more shows and re-release Ode to Io as a remastered deluxe edition with bonus tracks in 2017 (which was reissued again three years later). At this point in time, the band had begun writing new material and their long-awaited follow up record, Refractions, was released in 2020 through Funeral Blues Recordings. Despite receiving critical acclaim for their second album, the band also had to put the brakes on their invigorated state due to the lockdowns.
Subsequently, the band along with the aforementioned label invited Elephant Tree for a collaboration album, so both bands started writing music for the project in the next few years. This, of course, was also put into a halt after Jack’s accident. After going through partial recovery and having enough motivation, the Elephant Tree guitarist rejoined the rest of his band to resume work for the Lowrider split record as well as their very own compilation release, Handful of Ten (released in September, 2024).
The Long Forever takes its title from the coma Jack Townley suffered because of the biking accident, where his internal organs were compromised after being introduced into a lamppost, losing all sense of time and not being able to wake up from his dreams. The first half of the album, though, belongs to Lowrider. “And the Horse you Rode in on” opens the album and picks up just where Refractions left off, in typical riff-heavy fashion for the band. Its no wonder this song was picked as the lead single for the album, being the shortest track with an infectious hook and a killer guitar solo. “Caldera” takes a twist and slows the pace down. It is arguably one of the most melodic pieces the band has ever wrote, bordering on progressive rock rather than stoner. The 10 min track doesn’t shy away from the heavy aspect the band is known for, though, and the breakdown in the 5 min mark is a testament of that. “Into the Grey” follows the pace nicely, amping up the aggression once again but ending with a nice guitar lick accompanying a groovy bass riff towards the end of the song.
We arrive at “Through the Rift”, which is the transition piece of the album, featuring both bands in one song. While the song still riffs, it does feel dreamy and enters the alternative rock influence Elephant Tree fuses within their sound. The song features dual harmonious vocals by both Peder Bergstrand and Peter Holland. “***ed in The Head” is an odd but interesting choice to officially start side B, as it is mostly a dark full-band ambience piece, but it has a fuzzy pay off towards the end of the song. “4 for 2” is more bass and drum oriented, and it wouldn’t feel out of place in their self-titled release. Admittedly, though, this is the weak point of the album. Between the long buildup of “***ed in the Head”, which almost enters post-rock territory, and the commonness of “4 for 2”, the attention starts to drift off a bit. “Long Forever” is luckily a little better, infusing the alt rock/grunge influence the band is known for into more or less stoner rock. The doom aspect is mostly absent this time around. Unfortunately, though, the Elephant Tree side is not up to par with the Lowrider side, in my opinion. The production in side B is also too muffled for my taste (just like the band’s self-titled album is), which makes these songs lose the impact they could have had. After the brilliant release of Habits, which is also perfectly produced sonic-wise, I expected more.
As harsh as I might sound towards the Elephant Tree side, I’m glad they are still making tunes and motivated to carry on with the band. Also, I can see how the fuzzy, dreamy vibe of the latter half might feel adequate to how waking up from a long coma might feel like. In general, though, this feels more like a “we’re not going anywhere” statement for both bands, and hopefully they’ll carry on even stronger after this release.
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Lowrider is:
Peder Bergstrand – Vocals, bass, guitar
Andreas Eriksson – Drums
Niclas Stalfors – Guitar
Ola Hellqvist – Guitar, vocals
Elephant Tree is:
Peter Holland – Vocals, bass
Jack Townley – Guitar
Sam Hart – Guitar
John Slattery – Guitar, synths
Riley MacIntyre – Sitar, production duties
