Mothership – “The Eleven Dimensional Symphony”
(self-released 2007)
From Aural Innovations #38 (Jan 2008)
A deadly rain of spores from a distant galaxy is falling from the skies, and
all life on Earth is doomed. But there’s hope for the individual, like
the captain of the Ida Lee, who has built his own spaceship out of spare parts
and plans to leave the Earth in time to save his life and that of the one he
loves. So begins the story of The Eleven Dimensional Symphony, the debut album
from Colorado space rockers Mothership.
From it’s elegiac opening, with gentle strummed acoustic guitar, shimmering,
distant synth sounds, and lonely whistling, the story of the hapless Captain
of the Ida Lee unfolds through songs bearing such influences as Pink Floyd,
early Nektar, Spacemen 3, and even Bob Dylan! The Mothership sound is rich,
melodic and spacey. While there are many mellow acoustic sections, they certainly
don’t shy away from heavy passages, and layers of glistening guitar noise.
As we follow the unnamed Captain on his journey through the loss of his loved
one, encounters with a god-like being, the evolution of cybernetic companions,
and ultimately, the penetration of a virtual reality of the imagination, the
music conveys his moods, his loneliness, and the awesome spectacle of what he
is witnessing. There are digressions, like the terrific Ida Lee, a kind of cosmic
cowboy song that could have easily been some country rocker singing about his
pick-up truck till you realize it’s the Captain singing about his spaceship.
But delicious touches of liquid, psychedelic guitars never let it slide into
the mundane. There are a few instrumentals too, like the experimental ambient
exploration of White Nebula and Bright Point of Blue Light that connect the
more song-oriented pieces together. One of the standouts is Serious Coyote,
a 10-minute song, which begins as a fluid acoustic ballad laced with eerie slide
guitar, before it builds into an explosive space rock jam that soars through
the heavens.
From the dreamy acoustic psychedelia of Is That a Star to the dark and mesmerizing
rock of Curtis Lightning to the blistering, spacey alt-rock of Cornelius, The
Eleven Dimensional Symphony covers a lot of ground, but without losing track
of their story and the overall mood of the concept. In the above mentioned song,
Cornelius, the Captain, lost in the complexities of The White Nebula implores
the god-like being of the title to play him one of His cosmic melodies. Fortunately,
we don’t have to go to such extremes, we just have to pop in the CD and
we get to listen to some great cosmic melodies as played by Mothership. Recommended!
Check the band's web sites at: http://www.myspace.com/mothershipbandname
Reviewed by Jeff Fitzgerald