Gallow's Pole: Waiting for the Mothership

Heavy/Space/Stoner Rock

4.5/5.0

Pure Rock Records
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by Craig Hartranft,  08.22.2011

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Austria's Gallow's Pole has been at their craft for better than 30 years. The first twenty years offered sporadic releases. But in the last four years Gallow's Pole has released three albums, including the latest and sixth, Waiting for the Mothership.

It appears Gallow's Pole is making a return to their past, their roots, as this disc echoes the heavy rock of the late Seventies, with touches of space and psychedelic rock. You might even want to classify the sound as proto-metal, with seeds of NWOBHM hidden within the arrangements. Perhaps a listener might call this stoner rock thanks to the massive riffage and oft plodding pace of the songs.

That possible latter motif, stoner rock, swells on Old Man Cry and Return to Paradise as heavy chunky riffs over a foreboding rhythm section move a moderate, suspiciously epic, pace. Actually, put in context with Waiting for the Mothership all three songs are practically up beat in a strangely inexplicable way. Though enigmatic, it's capture your interest. Then Do You Remember and A Big Mistake, a favorite track, sound like Pink Floyd pushed through that heavy rock motif. The theme is melancholy, the atmosphere nearly light, especially on A Big Mistake where piano and the accompanying female vocals charm your ears. Then just to up the ante of unpredictability The Universe Will Understand offers well-paced heavy rock with a quite catchy melodic thread.

A few final comments. Of particular interest is the stylish and clear guitar solos throughout, and Alois Martin Binder somber, subdued, but passionate vocals. While there's more than a little fuzz for that psych/stoner feel, the production is clear with a nearly minimalist raw feel, which only make the album sound better.

Gallow's Pole's Waiting for the Mothership recalls the heady early days of heavy rock, perhaps being even proto-metal, forming the span that gave us the New Wave of British Heavy Metal. Regardless of interpretation, Waiting for the Mothership is a fine and entertaining album, and certainly an important and intriguing find in the smothering context of modern rock.