Here Lies Man
Ritual Divination
Riding Easy Records
This offshoot of America’s best known Afrobeat band has frequently been described as Fela Kuti jamming with Black Sabbath. On Ritual Divination, the Sabbath vibe is dominant. The songs deviate from their previous emphasis on the groove, bringing the trance inducing rhythms of Afrobeat to gnarly metal melodies. For Ritual Divination, everything revolves around guitarist, Marcos Garcia’s heavy riffage.
Garcia has described Here Lies Man’s writing process as composing soundtracks to imaginary movies. Each song is a scene in the movie with the album taking you on a journey. If this is a movie, it’s the kind of grindhouse movie Quentin Tarantino loved as a kid. It’s got that low down, gritty feel. “Come Inside” in particular has keyboard sounds that take me back to triple feature nights at the drive in. Like those triple features, I can’t tell you much about what this movie is actually about. Back in the day, we didn’t really go to the drive in to watch the movies. Here Lies Man are telling some kind of story. They are singing. Those voices though, they’re buried way down in the mix and are as fuzzy as the guitars. I think the voices are there to enhance the mood being laid down, to color the atmosphere of the scene. Just tell Mom and Dad it was a horror movie and they won’t ask questions.
