There’s a thin line between wallpapery ambience and the sort of meditative drone music that demands unflinching attention. Happily, although Olympia duo Growing use some pretty ambient signifiers?a lot of birdsong and babbling brooks, chiefly?their second album falls emphatically into the latter cultural camp. The most obvious reference point for these beautifully phased guitar and bass hums is minimalist innovator Lamonte Young. But like fellow travellers Sunn O))), there’s also a sense of an immense, tethered rock power: the gargantuan fuzz ritual of “Anaheim II” effectively finishes the work abandoned by Jason Pierce and Sonic Boom when they split Spacemen 3.
JOHN MULVEY
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