The Heretic's Bargain [CD]

Rangda! They planted a False Flag in the blood-soaked turf of the contemporary rock-politik. They were Formerly Extinct before you ever even THOUGHT about giving it up for good! Now, five years since ascending to collective Rangdadom, the flower-plower trio are back in your phase! This time around, Rangda strikes The Heretics Bargain for you but have a care, foolish listener; not only is it an offer you cant refuse, this heres a deal you cant repeal! Ever since Sir Richard Bishop, Ben Chasny and Chris Corsano banded together, the supergroup moniker has stuck in Rangdas collective craw. We only meant: gee, what a super group! Its boss stuff, kids! But whatever, and whats done is done The Heretics Bargain takes a nail gun to that ideas coffin and buries it ALIVE, firmly reinforcing Rangda as a band with a shared intuition, instead of the sum of three separate (though insanely great) parts. After years of recording and touring together, Bishop and Chasnys guitar playing has mutated via some kind of lateral gene transfer of their musical DNA, and the rhythms ridden by Rangda feel mutually funded (though Corsanos beat-making is as finelined and rawly inspired as ever). With The Heretics Bargain, its harder to tell who wrote what, and Rangda (and you) is better off for it. The Heretics Bargain takes territories that Rangda explored on their first two albums the abraded fury and free forms off False Flag and the serpentine Rang-dang-doodle songatechture from Formerly Extinct and evolves them further into a grand unified I-know-I-dont-know-what-it-is- (but-I-like-it) development in music. The Heretics Bargain is the sound of Rangda and, without getting all rock-opera on you (but a little AOR, to be sure), The Heretics Bargain is best taken as a whole, from the initial locked-down snare/ guitar strafing and tension-rattling choruses of To Melt The Moon to the side-long Mondays Are Free at the Hermetic Museum. Lots of ground is covered, but its all part of the same earth. Until you fall off the edge in the end. Further informing Rangdas unity are the recording-mixing- mastering team of Jason Meagher and Patrick Klem, both of whom worked on Formerly Extinct. For The Heretics Bargain, both are back again behind the controls at a safe distance from the band, naturally!

• Format Detail: CD
• Format: CD
• Genre: Rock