Lupine Howl – The Carnivorous Lunar Activities of – Review

Lupine Howl

The Carnivorous Lunar Activities of… (Beggars Banquet)
by Lex Marburger

It may be a debatable point, but Spiritualized live circa 1997 was one hell of a show. Their psychedelic wall-of-sound was mainly attributed to Jason Spaceman, and their epic sets left many too drained to do much more than stare blankly at whatever bands tried to follow. But it seems that the pressures of touring (not to mention the rampant egomania/drug use of said Spaceman) caused a rift in the rhythm section. Not surprisingly, they soon left. So what became of all involved parties? Well, Jason made Spiritualized into an overly-orchestrated pop train wreck (sorry, but I may be the only critic who didn’t really like Let It Come Down), while the others (Sean Cook, Mike Mooney and Damon Reece) decided to forge ahead with Lupine Howl, and, as it turns out, have captured the loopy grooves of Spiritualized and propelled them further than expected. The Carnivorous Lunar Activities of starts out with a borrowed riff from an old Funkadelic record and slams it into a driving beat and a paranoid rant about touring. From there, all gloves are off and the boys set about letting us know what happened to the Spiritualized sound. That finicky bitch of a muse switched teams.

Activities… is as hard, solid, and powerful as anything out there. More chaotic than a shoegazer group, more psychedelic than a straight rock band, and a hell of a lot more interesting than anything Blur’s put out lately. Or Spiritualized, for that matter.
(580 Broadway #1004 New York, NY 10012)