Rise Above Records

“Spacerock has been left to the hippies for far too long, and we've come to take it back. Playing mind-altering spacerock is a serious business. And we mean business.” Says Martin, Litmus', sonic manipulator.

From the moment the first juddering chords of “Destroy The Mothership” roar through the speakers like an psychic storm you know Litmus really DO mean business.

There’s no tie-dye wearing, patchouli-scented, stripey-trousered, dreadlocked hippy thing going down here. Litmus are renegade agents of bludgeoning space rock, charging down from the giant behemoth of ugly rock n’ roll gone warped and insane with too much Kool-Aid and bad acid.

Obvious Hawkwind comparisons will no doubt be drawn by fledgling space cadets, yet to fully wet their third eye with the tears of sonic attack. And Litmus, it must be said do come from a similar head state as Hawkwind. But that’s where it all ends.

Litmus have more in common with Motorhead on acid, Sabbath on speed, and wild-eyed bikers ripping up the highway freaked out of their minds on Ketamine and Jack Daniels.

Witness riffs that melt minds, played fast and heavy, driving un-mercilessly into your battered ears, repeated like a deadly mantra while fully psychedelic electronics unhinge your psyche. Then there’s the massive volume. Although a studio album, Planetfall contains more bludgeoning frequencies, drum battering, thunderous bass workouts, screaming guitar solos, and volcanic moog and audio generator intensities than any other rock band could hope to muscle through a studio doorway, menacingly rearranging the molecular structure of your brain.

Despite being fairly new to the space rock field, Litmus are already a legend unto the scene they are quickly coming to dominate. They released two extremely limited and very sought after cassette demos in 2000/1, leaving fans scrapping for further tracks on a series of free-festival compilation albums, appearing alongside the likes of 2000DS, Damo Suzuki’s Network, ST-37, Tim Blake, Amorphis, The Meads Of Asphodel, Farflung, Circle, Acid Mothers Temple, and Acid King to name but a few.

In 2004 Litmus unleashed their debut full length “You Are Here” erupting onto the album market with a monolithic offering to the spacelords that could never be ignored. Arch-Druid Julian Cope rated them as “the biggest baddest best kept secret ever”.

And here we are again, the damned, suckers for one more trip. “Planetfall” bursts from the speakers as if erupting from a gigantic supernova, heavy space rock the likes of which all burned out cosmonauts have only been dreaming of in delirious acid-fried visions for decades.

If you thought space rock had died along with the hippies, then think again. Litmus’ thunderous roar has awoken the slumbering behemoth of tripped-out British Metal. They have licked the dust off space rock’s rusty old spaceship, charged it with dirty yellow street speed, snorted it then chucked it back up like a gob of cosmic spittle, ripping the cosmos apart. Litmus mean business!

Dave Gedge, Bad Acid

'Planetfall is released via Rise above Records on May 14th 2007.'

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