Album Details

• Artist: Plankton Wat
• Album: Crystal Wizard
• Label: Stunned Records
• Year of Release: 2008
• ME Rating:
• Reviewed by: patchen on 2008-12-05

Remember the name Dewey Mahood. In an era where anyone can make a record but few will get to hear most of them, Mahood stands out as one of those adventurous guitarists crying in the wilderness who ought to be more well-known. "Crystal Wizard" won't change that. The bottom line is, though, that Mahood is fingerpicking his way into the mystic. His haunting moans are also right on, coming across as intense and not added on for art (or artiness sake).

On these six tracks, he plays drums and bells as well as guitar, the whole thing recorded on a 4-track cassette. From that micro-seed has come big sound: space, layered, growing in intensity. Reverb, echo, wah-wah and simple, light chords create a woven pattern of meditative but hard hitting grooves; the guitar lines wash over one another until they mingle, and become something bigger and deeper. There is a lot of bold, confident playing here, a kind of searching with the faith that you will find what you're looking for eventually. The heights of that search are in the slow drift of "Still Water"
 and the loud power of "Forever Glowing Vista."

Dewey Mahood has plied his trade in other spaces, with Eternal Tapestry and Bloodbiker especially, but he has upped the ante on his own with "Alchemy of Darkness." This is a must-have.

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