10,000 Years - II (Review)

Written by: Shane Thirteen

I started this review like so many others: Scorched Green in a glass piece. As per usual I have spent a few days listening to the work I am to dive into. The very first time I gave this album a spin I knew I was going to dig it. II by 10,000 Years is spacey, sludgy, and fuzzy. Just how I like it.

You see, I don't do the technical approach to reviewing. Some do, and that is great. Breaking down the album song by song and giving opinion on the technical nature of the band. I give two shits about that. I approach all reviews as if I were a fresh faced young music fan who was just handed an album by a buddy to check out. I want to explore new music with the same gusto I had when I got into records back when I was about 14. The absolute emotion of the things is what turned me on. Albeit, my tastes have changed. But I still approach music as if I have only just begun.

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I'm from Kansas. I don't know jack about Sweden, other than there are bands that I like that are from there. There is a town in Kansas called Lindsborg, or Little Sweden as it's known. Little wooden horses and old people in wooden shoes. Some kind of weird coffee filtered with an egg.  I have no idea what that is about. It's the closest I've ever been to Sweden. If the real Sweden is anything like Lindsborg Kansas, then it is NOT an apocalyptic space rock fantasy ride.  But 10,000 Years is just that.

I myself have been known to get lost in galactic deep space many many times. A few times I almost didn't make it back. Thank the cosmos I had 10,000 Years as a soundtrack on this voyage. Full of doom sludge groovy thickness. These songs are crafted heavy sonic trips through distant nebula.  The tracks glide smoothly. Bringing the weary space traveler through wormholes while darting around quasars. If you have ever imagined yourself as a lone pilot screaming through space at hyper light speed?  Blasting through the desolate blackness of space in a rocket made for one? Then crashing on a desolate alien planet, only to realize you are completely at the mercy of an alien environment on a planet no one has ever heard of!?! Chances are you would love to be transported to the fantasy galaxy of 10,000 Years.

What I love about sci fi is what I found I love about 10,000 Years. I have been transported out of my troubles, stresses and worries and the daily humdrum droll and I have been taken into a Universe in which none of that matters. Because the moment you engage with the narrative you can drift away and the only thing that matters is taking the ship in for the safest crash landing your skills can muster. You are now engulfed in a world of alien worlds and creatures so terrifying there isn't enough laser blasters in the galaxy to save the day from. But your heart is racing. Your senses are on fire and you exist only as a space commando piloting a ship on a doomed voyage into the blackness of space. I live for this. The escape. The fantasy of galactic doom. I need it. I need 10,000 Years in space.

​The sounds and tones of 10,000 Years feel like a warm embrace. Thick warm tones deep in rich expansive cosmic psychedelia. I have listened to this album twice with our friend the fun fungus. To embrace this world while totally engulfed in its majesty is epic. I was able to completely submerge myself in their songs. Taking me back to that time in my life where music engulfed my entire thought process.

So, there I was...living in a space fantasy I had no creation in, but felt as if I was aboard the ship itself ripping through the galaxy. Each track crashes through like starlight.  On tracks like "Gargantuan Forrest" and "Dark Side of the Earth," they literally lifted me out of myself and I could feel the intent of imagination that must have been present in the room while it was being forged. Brilliant song constructions. I love it when an album flows into and within itself. When artists take their time actually constructing songs it shows, and 10,000 Years have  shown me a new galaxy in an incredible piece of work. Full of soulful riffs, deep warm fuzzy tones, thick rhythm, and groove, II is fantastic. An instant heavy psych doom sludge piece of space art. 

I love it. I will be listening to this for years to come. 

10,000 Years - II was released June 25th, 2021 via Interstellar Smoke Records

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10,000 Years can be found:
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