Trail's debut album Spaces is a perfect album, period!

100/100

The moment I first saw the cover art for Trail's debut album Spaces while scrolling through the January edition of Doom Charts I knew I had to give this record a spin.  Yes, I'm guilty of the old adage of judging a book, or in this case an album, by its cover.  The cover art looked as if Ralph Steadman was drawing his interpretation of Alice In Wonderland, or at least that was what I took away from it.  It looked amazing!

The first thing I noticed upon actually getting a copy of the album was there were only five songs, but the record had a run time of around 45 minutes.  That intimated to me the fact that these were all extended jams, a definite plus as far as I'm concerned.  The second thing that struck me as kind of odd was how the band, which hails from Darmstadt, Germany, named their songs, more on that upcoming.

The first song, titled simply "No. 2," is intense and builds with swirling, circling guitars, getting right to the action.

          "Start the action, inhale the world, we love the smell of motherfuckin' burning fuel"

Singer Jan Henning Curtze, also one of the band's two guitarists along with Hergen Breitzke, paints a vivid picture of a psychedelic freak out taken on the road.  They even invoke Saint Jimi in one particular passage:

          "Feel the breath, purple haze, we love the smell of motherfuckin' burning weed
          Psychedelic pills gonna blow my mind, fly down south amonst the dunes..."

This song is a call to adventure, a call to action, a call to psychedelic freak out, and Trail is inviting the listener along for the ride.  And they're going to blow your mind.

          "And with its burning wheels, miles and tons of material, we're gonna blow up
          your mind. Nobody knows the fuckin' emission rate."

See?  They they come right out and tell you.

The second tune, titled "No. 8," (are you starting to picking up the theme to the odd titles yet?) begins with a gentle rain storm and then leads in with an easy-going riff, laid back and mellow.  It slowly builds for about about five minutes, leading to a gentle crescendo, then a chiming guitar, rings out,  then the tune layers back in on top.  With about two minutes left in the song, the main riff reasserts itself and draws everything back around to a close nicely with a smooth, clean finish. relaxed and sedate.  Instrumental all the way.  I didn't realize it until it had ended.  While Henning Curtze has a fine enough voice, and could have fronted any number of the 90s grunge acts solidly, I didn't miss his vocals in this track.  The song was that silky without his voice.

The third track, "No. 9," starts with a drum slap and kick and we're off.   Over a minute and half in  the bass of Jan Götze has a groovy little solo that leads the direction of the song as it thumps its way along until about the 3:50 mark, when the tempo slows and the lead guitar settles in for a scintillating, slow crawling jam that satisfies as Götze and drummer Nils Curtze work the bottom end to perfection.  I LOVE this bit.  I just want to sit back with my special mood lighting going and melt into my recliner, if you get my meaning.  The solo actually closes the song out about five minutes later.  Again, a completely instrumental track.

Band photos supplied courtesy of Trail.

A strumming guitar jangle and Götze's smooth bass commence the next song, the 10-plus minute epic "No. 1."  High hats and cymbals ring out, then the bass drum, and it all draws together.  You're four minutes into the song before you even realize it has begun.  By the time the soloing begins the song is almost half over, but that doesn't matter.  Everything this band does is so complex and smooth in execution you just want to sit back and let the tunes wash over you like, dare I compare it to the perfect blowjob, where you just lay back, relax and she does all the work?  Is that too sexist?  Well, that's what this album does to me, it invokes those kinds of feelings.  It stirs those emotions.  It's THAT GOOD.

By the time the final song rolls around, "No. 4," I'm a sloppy mess.  I'm completely up for whatever by this time.  I'm along for any ride Trail wants to take me on.  Surprise, it's another instrumental, the fourth on the album.  Ten minutes and 45 seconds later when the album draws to a close I'm ready for a nap.  This album has taken me, turned me upside down, sideways, inside out, every which way, and I'm glad to have been there.  I've been doing this site since shortly after the death of Lemmy Kilmister in 2015.  I just converted it over to all stoner/doom rock this month, but I've handed out a number of reviews in the past, granted those have been deleted as I switch content, but I've never issued a perfect score before.  This is my first, 100/100.  Trail, Spaces is a perfect album.


Selected from the band's biography:

TRAIL - This bluesy, melancholic and explicit sound is based on fat, unshaved and unwashed guitars, heavy and groovy bases and electrifying drums.  This reminds of the birthplace of grunge, Seattle.  Thereby, the deep desert sound waves forces the audience into other dimensions.  Directly travelling from stage into the eardrum of each individual person.  The music speaks like a trip placed on your tongue.  Oppressively guitar fragments, vibrating basses and still this psychedelic devotion drifts the blues in the dedicated direction of stoner rock.

The quartet exists since 2015 - the main constellation is originated based on different constellations such that every member has professional musical experience collected over the last 15 years.