At first, I hard a hard time “hearing” this album, but I couldn’t help but immediately FEEL every track.

I need a short preface to this review, to give some much needed context for what is likely going to be a weird write-up.:

I put the buds in my ear and hit the streets for a run. While listening to Black Moth Super Rainbow’s (BMSR) new album Panic Blooms I got cotton-mouth, paranoid, scared of the dark (while completely sober).However, when I closed my eyes, I was with my long forgotten friend, laying in the greenest grass by the bank of the Saint- Lawrence river, with our bikes thrown down next to us, eyes to the sky, sun palpably energizing us, without a care in the world… one of the few times I can remember REALLY being in the moment. and in my ears is Dandelion Gum ( which I was obsessed with at the time)

Now, just like the aforementioned friend, I lost touch with BMSR. I caught-up a little bit with Eating Us, but it just wasn’t the same, and we lost touch. Since that often thought-of memory, I got a degree, lived in three different cities, a handful of different girlfriends and jobs, and hit the quarter century milestone. Things are different. Nostalgia may be the best narcotic, and maybe that’s all it is, some “not quit as it seems” trip down memory lane. But it’s comforting.

The first half of this album was listened too while jogging under gray, cloud-covered skies around 8:30 pm. Running along the very same river, yet in a completely different city, and alone. My girlfriend out of town for a family vacation, my friends unavailable, and my intent on getting to work on this review. I ran across a bridge towards a different province, slapped around by the wind as the skies got darker and darker, but when I closed my eyes, it was sunshine and my then best friend, naive and free. I started by saying I had a hard time hearing this album, but there’s no denying how deeply I felt it. The second half was listened too back in the safety of my apartment, after sprinting up from the dark and then nightmarish area by the water. Here, I am able to both feel and hear this epic. How do you describe BSMR… to me you just can’t. Maybe it’s my lack of skill as a writer, but there’s some albums that just connect with you in a way only you can describe and/or understand. I’d sound insane trying to explain this further, as insane as I felt air-drumming to a track alone by the bank, worried someone would see and think I was one of the resident loons. For whatever reason, I had a hard time not thinking of how different my life is now compared to those blissful Dandelion Gum years. I have nothing to complain about, it’s perhaps just that shared experience of realizing youth is fleeting, and that’s okay. There’s a lot in my life that I am more thankful for now and wouldn’t trade-in to relive those moments from yesteryear. I always said I’d rather be blinded by the truth then live in ignorance ( although there are some days I struggle with that).

I realize now, that I haven’t really talked about the sound of this album at all. I don’t really want to. This was a deeply personal experience, but I realize I have a (although self-imposed) duty to at least give a bit of an idea of what to expect. An emotional rollercoaster through an IV drip of Dilaudid. You’ll feel as though you have wings, experiencing and witnessing a beautiful rapture as everything floats high above and elevates, just as you’ll feel a heavy blanket of yearning smother you. I nearly cried as “Backwash” played on. It made me text friends to check-in, then “Sunset Curses” came in, and I had to check myself with some deep controlled breaths. This just feels as though it’s going to be an understated masterpiece that will be whispered about and shared amongst friends like a powerful revelation. This album is a tribute to bonding when we need it most. It’s certainly there most zeitgeist-plugged album. It’s an album for our current reality. There is a melancholic peacefulness to it.

You may feel as though you were born on a day the sun the didn’t rise, but Panic Blooms is here to assure you there is a sunrise coming…. a glorious, warm and drippy sun that will be yours to share with the world.

9/10 acid flashbacks

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