Written by: Dave Cantrell

In this troubled, off-kilter, flea-bitten world, the arrival in one’s mailbox of a new Telescopes record (Static Charge) is not simply – due, as one will inevitably find out, its inherently unwavering ability to meet that mealy-mouthed charade head-on with no compromise whatsoever – a joyous, more-than-welcome occasion but something more akin to a revelation wrapped in a skein of what may well be called a ‘tender brutality.’ Now, for any of you for whom The Telescopes have not crossed your radar check here for a quick Wiki but suffice to say that, whether one be a neophyte or a long-time devotee, for any outfit of this ilk not called The Fall¹ to have survived some thirty-eight years² is damn near some sort of juju miracle, a claim more than ably supported by the recent arrival (June 26th via Tapete) of the band’s nineteenth (!) full-length.

Consisting this go-round of band leader/founder/primary songwriter Stephen Lawrie (guitar and vox), Darrel Carter (guitar), bassist Robert Prest with John Lynch covering all things percussive, this latest, while consisting of ‘only’ seven tracks, is nonetheless as arrestingly mesmerizing as any in the band’s formidable catalog, inviting, for this listener, the phrase ‘The Telescopes just keep telescoping’ and while, yes, a bit too-too perhaps the fact is that, as band names go, this one’s pretty spot-on fucking accurate. Lawrie’s vision has this tendency to focus through the murk of the many atmospheres we find ourselves surrounded by be they the actual, metaphorical, emotional, political or cultural and nail its essence to that shimmering, ever-evolving canvas of sound that we’ve found ourselves obsessed by ever since whatever song or band it was that pulled us into that whirlwind in the first place. And while we’re pretty damn certain that no one familiar with this lot will fail to find a single sound emanating from this particular album’s static charge anything but as Telescopes-worthy as all that have preceded it, we’ll nonethess plow forward in to the splendid mire.

There’s the narcotic dreamstate of opener “White Noise” which, while not an unexpected description to find affixed to anything Telescopes, in this case one is truly lured with what might be rightly referred to as ‘ironic detachment’ that regardelss manages to attach itself on to something akin to a ‘dark joy.’ From there it’s murky wonderment after murky wonderment, be it…

…the unrelenting sub-throb of “28 Grams,” unspooling over its five-minute length at a pace half trance half doomscape and 100% captivating; the damn near bucolic and not a little hypnotic “Revolutionary Blues,” its drift drifting toward some odd Eden where peace is conditional on an admission that it’s not even remotely likely to manifest which, given the track’s subtly transcendent vibe is just fine with us; the exquisite sub-psychedelic fen that is “Still Nothing,” its central couplet “Hold still, still nothing” managing to exude the very contradiction inherent in our mere existence in a way that’s actually, umm, soothing, no doubt down to the amniotic throb of a vibe that carries it from point A to point zed, all the way to the alluring, tenebrous yearn of the gently monumental closer “Desolation Grows” that’s suggestive of a desert soundtrack assuming said desert is rife with a soft hovering menace whereupon beauty and dread find common parlance before drifing off into a sunset that serves as a suitably disturbing – which is to say wholly satisfying – coda.

As should be gathered from the foregoing, the sound throughout Static Charge has a sticking power that belies the thematic foment these tracks bathe in, a point proven by the fact I’m still humming the gist of “Still Nothing” (as an example), its progression shadowing me hours past my hearing it but no surprise, I suppose, seeing as with The Telescopes there is that sense that we are being pulled into a dark and swirly series of epiphanies, the seeming understatedness of them being the very key that unlocks that vault. And speaking of ephiphanies of a sort? It struck while writing this that – and we’re in no way meaning to be cute here – this listening experience might well approach what one might have experienced if Metal Machine Music had been sufficiently nuanced enough to be listenable. Simply put, Static Charge IS that monumental.

¹ – to be clear the mention of the two outfits in the same critical breath is a nod to both outfit’s dogged – and exceedingly unique – persistence rather than any per se aesthetic similarity.

² – exactly, as it happens, the span of years between the Fall’s Live at the Witch Trials and their last – New Facts Emerge – before Mark E Smith passed in 2017