Gomer Pyle - Idiots Savants (2009)

TRACKLIST # Drawback # Mimesis # Albino Rattlesnake # Bring on the Diesel # Slugrace # Detrimental # Math Again "The music created by the guys of Gomer Pyle is best described as space-stoner rock. The band plays a quite mellow sound with some rough edges along the way. A warm and smooth sound oozes out of the speakers when I play Idiots Savants, which both relaxes and rocks. Quite an eclectic selection of music to be found here. While listening to this record, I do have to say that the sound of this band reminds me a lot of the Swiss band Monkey3. Very psychedelic, a lot of stoner influences, you can almost see the people sitting in a circle tripping on some LSD. Add some small country influences and you’ve got yourself some nice music." According to Gomer Pyle’s biography the band’s sound can best be compared with the menacing sound of a storm forcing a tidal wave into the Oosterschelde estuary. Since I do not come from the Zeeland region and never witnessed a storm on the banks of the Oosterschelde, I have no idea how that sounds, but somehow I think this description is somewhat misleading. Perhaps storms in Zeeland are different from storms in the northern part of the Netherlands, where I have my roots, who knows… However, after listening to ‘Idiots Savants’ I can imagine Gomer Pyle as a tidal wave, but only a very quiet one. More like seeing a wall of apple-sauce coming towards you. Mind you, this is meant in a positive way, Gomer Pyle creates long spacerocksongs, in which the listener can go under like in an endless sonic maelstrom. Very psychedelic and all. And since I somehow associate psychedelics with the colour green (and purple) the mental picture of a tsunami of apple-sauce formed in my mind. Hmm… enough of that, let’s get serious again. Gomer Pyle has been active since the early nineties, although few have taken note of that. After a promising start the band took some sort of recess only to emerge again in 2006. Their sound had by then evolved towards spacerock, a development taken even further once Sander Evers (ex-35007) took over the drumsticks. Comparisons with 35007 and Astrosoniq (Idiots Savants will be issued on their Spacejam label) impose themselves and it can not be denied, there are similarities. Fortunately not that many it becomes too obvious, Gomer Pyle is undeniably a spacerock/stoner band like the other two, but by no means a slavish imitator. Somewhere in the distance echoes can be heard of the early Pink Floyd (yes, those Brits responsible for ‘Echoes’, but more so ‘Set The Controls For The Heart Of The Sun’), combined with krautrock-like trance. ‘Mimesis’ is a good example: starting with spacesoundscapes, followed by these typical repetitive riffs that made bands like Can the legends they are today. The other, mostly long tracks, have been composed in a similar manner and the band should be praised for managing to keep us alert. It is not all space and kraut on ‘Idiots Savants’. ‘Bring On The Diesel’ is a song Josh Homme would probably have loved to have written, but he was too late. Four gents from western Brabant beat him to it. Let’s hope that after all the false starts in the previous decennium Gomer Pyle will finally get the recognition they deserve. This record is a good (new) start.

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