The Stumps - The Black Wood [Last Visible Dog - 2007]The Stumps come from a long lineage of Velvet Underground admirers, out of New Zealand. It's hard to see anything close to the Velvets in their sound, whether it be Cale-era insanity or the formalist rock and pop of the Doug Yule era, so perhaps the influence is just a jumping off point. The Stumps will also most likely be compared to Acid Mother's Temple and Les Rallizes Dénudés as well, because there's a ragged psychedelia to these tunes, and that might be a little closer to the mark. The Black Wood is a an all instrumental affair, and its array of sounds belie the fact that the band is a fairly traditional lineup of guitar, bass and drums. It wouldn't be at all surprising if these untitled tracks were totally improvised, and that the album might have been culled from hours of tapes, with the best parts edited cleverly together. It's a good cross between traditional rock instrumentation and barbed, bad trip inducement. The pictures of "burnt shit" that make up the artwork for The Black Wood are sort of indicative of where the music is headed. I hate to beat a dead horse, but since the label description tags them with a Velvet Underground influence, there is a bit of a similarity to Angus Maclise in the drum style at times (certainly, there's no Mo' Tucker going on here). At the same time, these brief Maclise-isms lead into fairly traditional rock drumming, and riff based jams, on occassion. Bass player Stephan Clover (of Palindrone and Seht) provides most of the riffs, and there are some striking guitar interludes provided by Anthony Milton (of the Nether Dawn, Mrtyu, etc). His super-distorted, sometimes multi-tracked feedback overtones remind me a bit of Flying Saucer Attack, since these sounds are subtle and desolate. But this music is way more abstract than FSA. And that's just one of many facets of the sounds represented here; these pieces vary the tone and atmosphere from track to track. A lot of The Black Wood involves droney interludes, which would do well as the backing for a horror film. Maybe the best thing about this album is there's absolutely no heir of pretense present, and it sounds like these these guys had a good a bit of fun recording this album. They sound like they're doing this music for their own enjoyment, and the fact that it's actually fun for the rest of us to listen to is a nice little bonus.    Erwin Michelfelder
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