Call Signs (2009)

• " ****Melbourne shoegazers hit jackpot with cinematic third album
  "Following two acclaimed albums in Altamont Diary and Jesus East, Ride/Catherine Wheel-loving Melbournians Black Cab mix and stir their signature ingredients Đ swirling wall-of-sound guitars, echo-drenched vocals, laidback fingerpicking and shimmering electronica flourishes Đ to neo-shoegaze perfection on LP number three Call Signs. The collective's previous German stints mean there are pronounced Teutonic overtones present on the detached Church In Berlin and oscillating, Tangerine Dream-like instrumentals Dresden Dynamo and Sonnenallee, while the acoustic slide-underscored Black Angel practically outshines nearly everything on BRMC's Howl. As far as the droning guitar halo travels, Rescue, and After The War all outdo each other in the buzz & fuzz stakes and when the said halo slows down and disperses, we get miniatures Fates and the two-part Wires, both being concise mood pieces par excellence. There's even a towering, near-Gregorian chant epic in Lost & Falling; Died Pretty's Ron Peno takes lead vocals on the haunting Ghost Anthems and piano ballad Sword & Shield rounds off the collection in a sublime fashion. Better still, the CD artwork Đ two military uniform-clad lovers locked in a fond embrace Đ oozes more Eastern Bloc chic than a dozen select Soviet movies (and this humble writer can attest he's seen more than a few in his lifetime). Just plain damn cool Đ from reverb and delay pedals with love."
  
  - Denis Semchenko/Rave Magazine/August 2009
  
  
• "Black Cab has a habit of building albums around a central idea. 2004's Altamont Diary scanned the curdled finale of the Stones' infamous 1969 show, whereas 2006's Jesus East cast an ear to sitars, tablas and other droning instruments of India. Call Signs finds inspiration in the imposing government surveillance of 1970's East Germany. While the Melbourne band Đ singer/programmer Andrew Coates and guitarist James Lee, plus a bevy of collaborators Đ hesitate to call it concept album, the opening title track features era-authentic radio signals and messages, and Call Signs' working title was 'Church In Berlin' (also the name of a song here). It's a testament to Black Cab's moody prowess that Call Signs isn't bogged down by that dour premise. If anything, it's a cozy fit with the album's late-night fog of cascading delay, layered background noise, glistening guitars and Coates' drowsy baritone. Pitched between M83's gasping synth soundscapes and Mogwai's inky instrumental workouts, these songs mine shoegaze, psych and post-rock earmarks while maintaining, at times, the drive of a pop single. There are also a few interludes acting as segues or change-ups between the album's varying gears. 'Church In Berlin' and 'Rescue' are strong early cuts, the latter churning its bass line for all it's worth. Further along, 'After The War' splashes melodies over taut drums and 'Lost & Falling' positions stalactites of synths alongside squiggles of guitar. Heavily treated and sung as if sharing a state secret, Coates' vocals can be hard to make out, and sometimes they seem more for effect than as a vehicle for lyrics. That makes the presence of instrumentals quite natural: 'Dresden Dynamo' is set to burping keys and sampled voices, while 'Sonnenallee' comes off sounding like a club remix with its big beats. Despite how well Black Cab applies shadows and intrigue, some of Call Signs' most arresting moments arise from clear vocals and lyrics. The best, 'Black Angel', is a homage to the late American folk singer Judee Sill, who's the subject of a new US tribute album called Crayon Angel. It samples her spoken voice - Coates sings as well - and its folk gait was clearly inspired by her, although it could also be read as a return to some of the band's past country-psych influences. There's a wonderfully sour keyboard part, and Sill's voice is handled in a similar manner to Iggy Pop's in Mogwai's 'Punk Rock'. Died Pretty singer Ron Pero lends trawling lead vocals to 'Ghost Anthems', made triumphant with building drums and horn-like synths, but the closing 'Sword & Shield' includes Coates' singing at its least obscured. Moping with considerable elegance over guest Matt Vehl's piano, he seems confident in his voice only with the knowledge that the album is almost done. That's not a flaw; Black Cab delves so intently into effects and programming that it's pointless to imagine the songs without them. This is the band's trademark sound after all, and it's all the headier for its concentrated, tarry consistency.."
  
  - CR, Doug Wallen/Mess and Noise/ August 2009
  
  
• "***** This concept album reflecting the romantically artistic contrasts of Berlin circa 1970 excites the cockles of this music lover's heart. While not a new ideal (they previously released an interpretation of 1969's Altamont tragedy), this is frighteningly realised and accurate, with the excitement one feels when artistically out of depth. Abrasive washes of fuzz and repetition, moments of horn-rimmed intelligence; there's even a track with Ron Peno (Died Pretty) that inspires you to rip the throat from commercial radio who never gave him the recognition. Cool, moody and reeking of an old Gitanes box left by Bowie and Iggy."
  
  - Chris Murray, Music Australia Guide Sept 2009
  
  
• "It's been eighteen years since a crowd of excited German youths did what a combination of western diplomacy and free market rhetoric had failed to achieve - brought down the wall that separated West and East Berlin. With that egregiously symbolic moment came the catalyst for the gradual extinction of the icons of the totalitarian East German state - the neo-Orwellian propaganda, emotionless uniform-clad representatives of a ubiquitous police force, androgynous, steroid pumped sports stars and dour post-Bauhaus architecture with the artist vibrancy of a concrete slab. It's within that distant cultural and political climate that Black Cab have decided to locate its latest musical opus, Call Signs. Having celebrated and critiqued Ô60s idealism in Altamont Diaries, and followed that idealism to its eastern fringes on Jesus East, James Lee and Andrew Coates, the protagonists who breathe the artistic life into the Black Cab concept, have now turned their focus to the suppressed beauty of the East German state. The country's totalitarian existence is conveyed in the simple tones of the 20 second opening title track; the rhythm and precision of Church In Berlin falls perfectly in line with the paradox of Soviet realist art, where the smiling faces of humanity both reinforce and undermine the state sanctioned discourse. Rescue is the proverbial call for help, its pace ebbing and flowing like the human spirit trying to find voice in a dysfunctional cultural landscape. The bleakness of Fates suggests the state has triumphed over that spirit; the Simon and Garfunkel idealistic folk sensibility of Black Angel (a tribute to '70s folk singer Judee Sill) indicates that the war is far from over. Dresden Dynamo sidles into aural view with the enigmatic presence of a Stasi secret agent eavesdropping on a couple of would-be insurgents; Lost And Falling is dark and threatening, like the cold concrete walls of the military cell to which insurgents were regularly condemned - yet, it's with James Lee's guitar that the light that still shines through when hope is all but lost, can be seen. The electronic beats of Sonnenalee could be a confused wander against the tide of the regular daily routine; after the reprise of the minimalist tones of the opening track in Wires, Ron Peno (Died Pretty) adds his typical personal touch to the intense pop-tinged hard-rock of Ghost Anthems. After The War is the calm after the storm of questioning and revolt; Sword And Shield is a sparse statement of romance found amid the ruins of brutal ideological institutions. Love, it seems, can still conquer many things. That there now exists a level of nostalgia for the halcyon days of communist rule says much for the capacity of humanity to ignore the pain of the past when confronted by contemporary socio-economic difficulty. Call Signs isn't a tool of myopic nostalgia Đ the bleakness of the industrial, political and cultural landscape constructed across the album is as obvious as the corruption of the Olympic ideals by the East German sporting machine - but it is a salient reminder that beneath the suffocating discourse and bland architecture lies heart, soul and artistic quality. And Black Cab know where to find it."
  
  - Patrick Emery, Beat Magazine. Sept 2009
  
  
• "On their first two albums, 2004's Altamont Diary and 2006's Jesus East, Melbourne's Black Cab (vocalist Andrew Coates and guitarist James Lee) approached rock'n'roll as a kind of death trip: they tapped into the post-psychedelic heaviness prevalent at the end of the 1960s. If those records had a certain cathartic glamour, their new disc inhabits a murkier landscape. Call Signs, inspired in part by Anna Funder's collection of collaborator's tales Stasiland, is centred on the East Germany of the 1970s, a country where the state's security apparatus was omniscient. There's a latent strain of paranoia in most pop music but it exists on a personal level. Call Signs recasts that mood on a national scale - foreboding rises up from the opening Church in Berlin, with Coates's stentorian cadence circling the guitars. Backed by electronic programming that suggests surveillance, the songs divide between laments for compromised individuals and invocations of the all-powerful system. It's a powerful work of post-punk atmospherics - play it back-to-back with Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck's film 'The Lives of Others'."
  
  - Craig Matheson, Sydney Morning Herald. 15th Aug 2009
  
  
• "4.5 stars. Melbourne's Black Cab deliver their third studio album, a dark and loosely romantic journey through rock and electronic beats inspired by 1970s East Germany. Call Signs is as chilling as an Eastern Bloc history lesson, resting its heavy soul on mournful beats and a minimalist rock energy. It pulls its inspiration from the likes of Bauhaus and Suicide. Steered by the talented vocalist and programmer Andrew Coates and guitarist James Lee, a host of musical identities including drummer Richard Andrew (Registered Nurse), bassist Anthony Paine (High Pass Filter), guitarist Alex Jarvis (Alex Jarvis Band) and programmer Steve Law (Zen Paradox) keep this brooding musical trip intact. Rescue is a great track, loaded with haunting vocals and swirling guitars with feedback while Dresden Dynamo makes the most of synthesiser beats. In a nutshell, this is a winner."
  
  - Jane Rocca, The West Australian. 13th Aug 2009
  
  

Jesus East (2006)

• "**** The dark side of hippie-dom, updated and energised
  Two years ago this Melbourne duo - Andrew Coates and James Lee - delivered a dark-horse diamond with Altamont Diary, their compelling, sinister concept album inspired by The Stones’ dread day of ’69. Their second sticks to no strict storyline but advances their mix of psyched-out 60s guitars/sitars and late 70s Teutonic rhythms to heart-stopping effect. It’s accumulatively epic: it begins as a fine Spacemen 3/Neu pastiche, but by the roaring climax its pulse-rockets are firing way beyond genre. As a finale Sam Cutler, M.C. at Altamont and Stones/Grateful Dead manager, drawls a languidly poetic memoir over “Valiant”, while guitars mentally creep. Utterly riveting."
  
  - CR, Uncut Magazine. April 2007
  
  
• "**** Three years ago, singer producer Andrew Coates and guitarist James Lee took a trip to the dark hell of psychedelic rock with their startling Altamont Diary, inspired by the dreadful events oat the Stones’ 1969 bloodbath. The wait for this follow up has been well worth it – steamrolling Beatles-style raga rock with Germanic drone dirges, BC create an ominous mystical netherworld complete with seductively layered advice for the next generation of stoned immaculate groovers, A brave, funny and invigorating adventure."
  
  Daily Mirror UK April 2007
  
  
• "**** Sounding like Primal Scream in the throes of some dark psychedelic seizure, Altamont Diary, the 2005 debut from Black Cab, was a sonic montage evocation-cum-tribute to the 1969 festival. This follow-up has no such unifying concept but comprises a comparable blend of psychedelic elements, with backward guitars, heat-haze sitar and organ drones, rolling drum tattoos and slithering lead guitar figures congealing into chugging Neu!-beat grooves behind spacey vocal chants and murmurs of lines like "I'm in a future I don't understand" and "My heart is on fire". There's a heartfelf tribute to Syd Barrett in "Underground Star", and Grateful Dead road manager Sam Cutler reminiscing on "Valiant" and "The Path" about "those magic moments, indescribably beautiful. Recommended for Spaceman 3 fans."
  
  - UK Independent, March 2007
  
  
• "**** This Australian duo are all evved up with somewhere to do on the second album: Seventies Germany, with Neu! as guides. The satanic Sixties psych of their debut, Altamont Diary, gets a full tank of krautrock fuel here. It's not a new route, but by the time Altamont veteran Sam Cutler's voiceover closes the album, they've given it a fresh glow."
  
  - Saturday Independent Music Supplement, April 2007
  
  
• "It's no secret Melbourne band Black Cab wear their influences proudly on their sleeves. Listening to Jesus East - their follow up to 2004's debut Alamout Diary - shades of The Jesus and Mary Chain, Velvet Underground and Primal Scream clearly bubble to the surface. The electronic and often industrial treatment of the music, cacophonous distortion, druggy vocals and melodic chord progressions, evokes nostalgia for an era when bands were able to incite riots, facing away from the audience. However unlike many artists that reference the past (often with very little imagination), Black Cab manage to deliver a highly original, and deeply mesmerising album. Fit for the 70s shoegazer or the 07 hipster, Jesus East is nothing short of brilliant."

-Paul Bui, Oyster Magazine Febraury 2007


• "**** Melbourne band Black Cab's 2004 debut, Altamont Diary, was a scorching concept flashback to the 'Stones infamous 1969 raceway concert. It's a tough act to follow, making this even more impressive. They move into the '70's with a swirling hangover of more-raunchy guitars, cocky vocals and psychedelia. The tablas and sitars suggest Black Cab are looking east while still lacing their rock with tasteful effects and electronics."
  
  - Paris Pompor, Sydney Morning Herald - Friday 29th Sept.
  
  
• "Black Cab always have something compelling to say. And not necessarily through lyrics, the poise in their krautrock-electronica-meets-big-sky-psych-guitar is always either menacing or beautiful - sometimes both - conveying at least as much emotional information as the words that accompany them... Black Cab rip you straight out of your everyday existence from the moment the pulsating bass of Hearts On Fire introduces Jesus East, immediately dropping you wide-eyed and wound up in a place altogether more fantastic and vital. With gusts of viscous guitar, throbbing bass, thunderstorm rhythms and ominously droning vocals, Jesus East presents the kind of musical adventure that should induce you to throw out most of your current record collection as impotent by comparison."
  
  - Martin Jones, InPress Magazine Sept. 2006
  
  
• "There’s no denying that Black Cab had a prodigious birth. Their debut Altamont Diary was one of those rareties: an album that required no name. Its first strains provided all the coordinates – the Speedway, 1969. An absolute mother of an album, it floored us with its vicious flashback to yesteryear. So it seemed only fair that their latest release, Jesus East, would receive some pretty heavy scrutiny. Have no fear, for this new offering is a bloody masterpiece. Just as Altamont Diary was literally a psychotropic trip down memory lane to that fateful day in December when a nation gathered to pledge their devotion to The Rolling Stones, Jesus East is a journey into the seventies. Accompanied by hazy guitars and nostalgic sitars and once again swathed in an aura of hallucinogenics, Jesus East contains plenty of the same guilty pleasures as its predecessor – raw Americana sensibilities interlaced with gentle electronic medium all making for potent nostalgia. But this time Black Cab seem to have gathered some momentum with a return to the shoe-gaze era. The Jesus and Mary Chain, Ride and Spacemen 3 show their handy work in a wall of grinding guitars and a winding maze of melody. Combining this with New Order’s driving drums, scorching bass and the mysteries of the East, Black Cab deliver a new breed of retro tribal-rock. From the start Black Cab have been pegged as a “band to watch”, with a knack for commentary and elaboration on the soul of yesteryear making them not only appealing but also relevant. Black Cab are doing the rounds and at present the entry fee’s bargain basement, but with every critic foaming at the mouth over the band’s fresh offering, it won’t be long before we’ll find ourselves out in the cold, wishing we’d booked two weeks in advance – so for God sake, show some foresight; line up, claw your way to the front and hug that speaker."
  
  - Nina Katze, 3PBS FM Nov. 2006
  
  
• "Those who have been awaiting the return of psych and shoegaze to the popular musical discourse will be delighted by the big, My Bloody Valentine meets Can tracks created by the duo of singer/producer Andrew Coates and guitarist James Lee (check out the motorik drumming of opener Hearts On Fire and Underground Star) mixed with more classically psychedelic moments, like the eastern influenced Another Sun and the closer, The Path. The title has a distinct Jesus and Mary Chain thing going on, with a two-chord pattern overlaid with disinterested Reid-like vocals, and the disc boasts guest contributions from Australian underground rock luminaries including the likes of Even's Ash Naylor and Underground Lovers/Registered Nurse drummer Rich Andrew, all of whom create a full, rich wall of textures and sonics across most of the tracks. However the albums great strength - the way it creates a sustained atmosphere - also means that Jesus East demands the listener to commit to listening rather than bunging it on for a casual skip..."
  
  - Andrew Street, Drum Media Sept. 2006
  
  
• "On its seminal debut album, Altamont Diary, Black Cab explored the journey from hippie idealism to drug stained dystopia represented by the Altamont Concert in 1969... Prevailing discipline is evident from the opening seconds of Hearts On Fire - a ripping bassline, Richard Andrew's pin-point accurate drums, strands of guitar that fall of the rhythm section like burning embers, splashes of space noise and Andrew Coates' haunting vocals channeling the emotional conviction of Ian Curtis, all combining to create an aesthetic that walks the line between psychedelic and psychotic. The title song, however, is as comforting as the opening track is threatening, a safe walk out of the neurological confusion into benign reality. Another Sun, 13 Days and the brief Randy Sez convey an eastern spiritual quality that George Harrison grasped but John Lennon, Paul McCartney, Pete Townsend and Brian Wilson never truly comprehended, while Underground Star finds the band light years away in the computer generated post-punk world of Gary Numan. After Simple Plan takes the shoe-gazing indulgence of the Stone Roses and builds it into a rock tour de force, we're left with a two-song concluding coda that's picture perfect. Former Grateful Dead and Rolling Stones road manager Sam Cutler narrates his kaleidoscopic memories of those oft-mythologized days and his observations on today's music. With Jesus East Black Cab have created another composite, multi-layered artist statement of such depth and quality that matches and builds on Altamont Diary."
  
  - Patrick Emery, Beat Magazine Sept. 2006
  
  
• "Black Cab's 2004 debut Altamont Diary - a re-imagining of the 1969 Stones debacle - received critical applause worldwide. But Jesus East leans on songs instead of a concept. Black Cab use friends (High Pass Filter and Even), and an expanding collection of electronics and loops. Jesus East keeps the eastern detours of Altamont Diary with live tablas and sitar, but more importantly, it retains Altamont's dynamism and momentum. Andrew Coates' signature treated vocals remain a unique element, the guitar work is exceptional but the 'blast factor' is toned down; the exception being Valiant featuring a riveting rant from former Stones manager Sam Cutler."
  
  - Jonathan Alley, Music Australia Guide, Thursday 7, September 2006
  
  
• "On their second album, Australian duo Black Cab blends 60 psychedelia with 70's rock and 2000's electronic influences and come up with something uniquely their own. After the critical acclaim that their debut album Altamont Diary received, Black Cab set about taking their sound forward by increasing the reliance on layers guitar loops and pulsing Germanic influenced drum tracks. Here on Jesus East, Sitar and tabla loops sit comfortably amongst more conventional rock numbers, a-la Revolver era George Harrison, while tracks like Hearts On Fire are reminiscent of early Britpop constituents Ride and The Jesus and Mary Chain. Black Cab is one half singer/producer Andrew Coates and the other, guitarist James Lee. On Jesus East they are joined by Alex Jarvis of Automatic, Anthony Paine of High Pass Filter fame and Richard Andrew of the Underground Lovers. Connecting this album with Altamont Diary is a special appearance by Sam Cutler. Cutler was the manager of the Grateful Dead and the Rolling Stones in the early 70's played MC at the infamous and fatal Altamont concert that marked a tragic end to the Sumer of Love in1969. From beginning to end this album grooves, rocks and trips out in all the right ways. For full effect play it from start to finish. Highly recommended."
  
  - The Dwarf.com.au, September 15 2006
  
  

Altamont Diary (2004) selected reviews:

• "You can almost hear the crack of the pool cues and smell the black smoke of the fires on the hill. With bloodied-fuzz guitars, hellish electronics and sound bites from Gimme Shelter, the Australian duo Black Cab has created a riveting, album-length memorial to the fatal folly of the Rolling Stones' free concert at Altamont Speedway in December 1969. This is the end of peace and love in you-are-there detail: the murderous riffing in "1970"; an eerie, electro-psych version of the Grateful Dead's "New Speedway Boogie"; the real, stoned-zone voice of Jerry Garcia, in "Jerry Sez," reacting to the bummer news that the Hells Angels have beaten up Marty Balin. A day that will live in infamy now lives on record, with appropriate menace."
  
  - David Fricke, Rolling Stone US April 2005
  
  
• **** "Melbourne duo Andrew Coates and James Lee have received album-of-the-year accolades in Australia for "the soundtrack to Gimme Shelter that never was". A dazed concept album about the Stones' fateful concert in December '69, it's the kind of psychedelic noir that Primal Scream or Spacemen 3 always strived to achieve. The Grateful Dead breathe all over it, but Black Cab add audio treatments, eerie voices and the knee-crunching guitars of the eleven-minute onslaught '1970'. From their fresh, exhilarating perspective, the Summer of Love expires again."
  
  - Chris Roberts, UNCUT Magazine UK July 2005
  
  
• "A concept album based on one of the darkest days in rock history - the 1969 Stones concert that ended in death and a Hell's Angels riot. It's an engrossing and unnerving trip, full of pulsating electro sound effects, distant crowd noises and musical nods to Primal Scream and New Order at their rampaging best. Nightmares start here."
  
  - UK Daily Mirror June 24th 2005
  
  
• "Ambitiously for a first album, Aussie duo Black Cab take a trip back in time to offer a glowering interpretation of the rock'n'roll nightmare that was Altamont. A stoned, dark menace hovers over such giveaways as Summer Of Love, Good Drugs, A Killing, as layers of guitars wail psychedelically and sampled, disembodied voices wander in and out of proceedings. All very Primal Scream, and none the worse for that, the best is reserved for last with a rib-rattling 10-minute plus finale simply called 1970."
  
  - Peter Kane, Q Magazine November 2005
  
  
• "In December 1969, a few months after the Woodstock Festival celebrated the cultural hegemony of the hippie dream, the killing of a punter by Hell's Angels at the Stones' free concert at Altamont Speedway in effect killed that dream stone dead, ushering in the selfish Seventies. This pivotal event is "celebrated" by the Australian duo Black Cab on this concept album, whose blend of mid-tempo guitar drones, sitar, wah-wah, electronic washes, maracas, half-heard conversations, announcements and windswept ambiences resembles Primal Scream in the throes of some dark psychedelic seizure. Apart from a cover of "New Speedway Boogie", the song that The Grateful Dead wrote about the event, the 10 tracks are cyclical grooves devised by the singer/producer Andrew Coates and guitarist James Lee, in which slogan soundbites such as "It's the Summer of Love" and "I can hear the sound of people getting down" are repeated, mantra-like, against densely layered backdrops, with snatches of speech ("...beating up musicians", "...somebody's hurt!") occasionally discernible through the sonic haze."
  
  - UK Independent December 9th 2005
  
  
• 8/10 "Black Cab are an Australian duo and this debut album is, you can assume, an ambitious starting point. You see, it's a concept record about the fateful free Rolling Stones concert in December 1969 where, among a series of minor disasters, an 18 year old black man was murdered, apparently by the Hells Angels So how does it sound? A bit like Primal Scream (circa 'Xtrmntr'), Spaceman 3 and Happy Mondays (without the fun) as it delves into the black heart of rock'n'roll nihilism. There are beats, tripped-out psychedelia, electronica and samples from the event. It's tense and drives towards the inevitable doomed ending during the chaotic bad-acid head rush of 'A Killing'. The 10-minute sprawling mini-epic '1970' closes proceedings with the bleak unbelievable truth that the dazed, confused and naďve spirit of free love died that day too."
  
  - Stuart Wright, Guitar Magazine UK, December 2005
  
  
• "The rock equivalent of the journey up the river in 'Apocalypse Now', a quite extraordinary concept record, equally thrilling and frightening. Black Cab is an Australian duo, singer and producer Andrew Coates and guitarist James Lee. This record, as the title hints at, is a concept album based around the notorious concert featuring the Rolling Stones that took place at Altamont Speedway in California in December 1969, an event that ended in a violent death that signalled the end of the 'Summer Of Love' hippy era. The music, although clearly influenced by the Stones and the Grateful Dead, draws at least as much, if not more, from Brit bands, particularly Primal Scream, but also Spiritualized, and New Order. So as well as Keef-esque riffage, and drums dragged from the pre digital age, there are walls of synth, echoy mantra like vocals (second track 'It's OK' repeats over and over 'Its OK, things are not OK'), crowd noises fade in and out, and indecipherable tannoy announcements drift by. It makes for a gripping listen, even though everyone knows how the story ends, terribly. It's possibly because of that fact, that the tension and unease builds through the record, momentarily diverted by a spacey reverb soaked cover of Grateful Dead's 'New Speedway Boogie'. The climax is the 10 plus minutes of '1970' which, since it follows a track called 'The Killing', signifies what came next, the end of 'Peace and Love'. It's an extraordinary song, as if Joy Division were channelling Quicksilver Messenger Service, and instead of coming from late 70s Manchester were drug fried Californian hippies on a bad trip. Lee's excellent guitar playing on this track significantly adds to the dark atmosphere. Annoyingly a bit too late for year-end 'best of' lists, but a stunning record. www.interstate40music.com/blackcab.html"
  
  - Patrick Wilkins, Americana-uk.com, December 2005
  
  
• "A concept album about the Stones' infamous concert that pretty much nixed the Swinging Sixties? Talk about having fat to fall… but this Aussie duo manage to pull off a sterling job; Altamont Diary is all swirling echo, raw as sushi chord slashing from guitarist James Lee, portentous big beats, and enough ideas to fill at least the last five Rolling Stones albums."
  
  - Rocksound UK, Dec. 2005
  
  
• "Apparently, the 1960s ended when Hell's Angels murdered an audience member and beat up Jefferson Airplane's Marty Balin during the Rolling Stones' 1969 Altamont concert. Black Cab's Altamont Diary concept album summons the spirit of the times without slavishly replicating its sounds. Instead, like America's Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, the Melbourne duo favour the effects-heavy psychedelia espoused by Spacemen 3 or Loop during the "shoegazing" era. Initial lysergic levity soon devolves into oppressive gloom, culminating in the 11-minute space-rock of 1970. An impressive release, with occasional over attention to detail."
  
  - Stewart Lee, Sunday Times UK, October 23rd 2005
  
  
• "Australian duo with a concept album about the fateful Rolling Stones concert at Altamont in 1969, and it seethes with a simmering undertow of violence. Just stay off the brown acid"
  
  - Music Monthly supplement, The Observer UK, November 20 2005
  
  
• **** "Black Cab's full-length debut is a concept album revisiting The Rolling Stones' ill-starred free concert at Altamont Speedway in 1969, chronicled in the Gimme Shelter film; an event so tragically marred by violence it came to signify the end of Flower Power as emphatically as Woodstock has championed it four months before. Yet rather than merely create a musical pastiche of the late sixties, Black Cab's largely instrumental project is a driving, hypnotic, guitar-led symphony that owes as much to Primal Scream as The Grateful Dead (whose New Speedway Boogie is covered here). Blended with snatches of dialogue from the Gimme Shelter documentary itself are prime-era U2 basslines, cinematic Air-like synths and an inventive use of layered guitars and effects - and, on the 10 minute plus centerpiece, 1970, some epic, demon-haunted guitar playing. Standout tracks: Summer of Love, Jerry Sez, 1970."
  
  - Owen Bailey, Guitarist UK, Sept. 2005
  
  
• "Wonderful, idiosyncratic and remarkably ambitious... the set succeeds in capturing an exceptional range of moods, building to a heightened sense of dread with Angels Arrive and Hey People, and the explosive finale of the 10 minute epic, 1970. The musicianship is exemplary - Lee is amazing, his layers of guitars always underpinning tape effects, keyboard washes and Coates' chanting vocals. The spirit of the Grateful Dead is all over the record - check their Cab's splendid version of New Speedway Boogie."
  
  - Jeff Glorfeld, Melbourne Age EG, July 2nd 2004
  
  
• "Another kick ass release, the sort of psychedelic noir that Primal Scream always promised but were either too stoned or not stoned enough to deliver."
  
  - Stephen 'The Ghost' Walker, 3RRR FM Melbourne
  
  
• **** "A superb blend of electronica and rock...dramatic without being pretentious, intelligent but not humorless."
  
  - Chris Wormesley, Melbourne Sunday Age Sept. 12th 2004
  
  
• "One of the most thematically and musically impressive concept albums, Australia - or indeed the world - has seen in years... A ludicrously impressive achievement that a band - especially an Australian one so removed by time and geography from the Summer of Love - could create such an eerie soundtrack to such an explosive time."
  
  - Anton fasterlouder.com.au
  
  
• "Melbourne duo imagining their own trip in the dark mother of all festivals. Like taking a mind drive into history. You can practically feel the hum of the event, its cosmic wave coming through you just over the hill. "
  
  - Mark Mordue, Neumu.org
  
  
• "This is like the soundtrack (to Gimme Shelter) that never was..."
  
  - Jeff Apter, The Bulletin
  
  
• "Black cab's new album 'altamont diary' has been knocking people out at fbi - and it's easy to hear why. The album was inspired by the rolling stones' free gig at the altamont speedway in 1969 and features some top notch, dirty, grinding rock'n'roll. All the touchstones are obvious (you could almost be on the bus with the merry pranksters), yet the sound is somehow liberating and forward looking. Such is the benefit of hindsight - returning to the past with a crateful of tunes from the 21st century."
  
  - fatplanet.com.au
  
  
• "In Altamont Diary, these two skilful musicians take the listener on a dark psychedelic trip back to 1969 but still with the present in sight as they pick up bits of the Grateful Dead and Jefferson Airplane, combine it with Primal Scream and Underworld, and then mix it all up with the weirdest acid they can find and finally let the listener down with the peculiar sensation that the world will never be the same again…"
  
  - blistering.com
  
  
• "Altamont Diary is simply amazing…"
  
  - Beat Magazine
  
  
• "Set against a backdrop of late-sixties festival goings-on, we're led through a hazy, drug-addled quagmire of rock and roll history, helped along by dark, spacious guitar, ominous and driving rhythm, arrangements, and haunting backroom overlays. With the obvious advantage of a historical framework, this album is a steady paced well mapped out trip through events long gone, and one of the more unique rock experiences I've had on a long while."
  
  - Daniel Griffith. InPress Magazine
  
  
• "Black Cab has faithfully recreated the sound of the time in a fashion that is almost unnerving... Occasionally with concept albums, bands run into the trap of assuming that the listener is clued into what the concept is. Happily, Black Cab haven't done this, and it's quite possible to listen to "Altamont Diary" without having the faintest clue where Altamont is and why it was important, and still get something out of it. Ultimately, that's the mark of an excellent album."
  
  - Craig Franklin, halo-17.net
  
  
• **** "Original. Creative. Assured. They're about the only words I need to describe this brooding piece of work from Melbourne indie act Black Cab. Full of atmospheric guitar effects, trippy keyboard sounds, moody drums and an assortment of alternate instruments (sitar, wind chimes), 'Altamont Diary' is perhaps one of the finest debut releases this reviewer has heard in a long time... From the laid back groove of Summer Of Love through the intense Good Drugs to the beaty vibe of New Speedway Boogie and the epic 1970, it's an impressive release. This isn't just a debut; this is a statement."
  
  - Mark Rasmussen, ozonline.com.au