10

Positivity

You can't listen to music and not hear other artists - it's simply not possible - we share a planet, a species; a species with ears and big ol' brains. Listening to Negative Pegasus you get John Stanier's skittling drums for Battles, Jimmy Page's theremin and bowed guitar dirges and the circular timings of Hawkwind but still, Negative Pegasus are only being themselves. Anyway, they have a plan to combat any such comparisons: "We want people that have heard Negative Pegasus not to be able to hear anything else because they are now deaf and/or insane."

The Sussex seasiders have a healthy disregard for what's 'right' and go for what feels good. That can lead to all sorts of diversions across debut full-length record Looming: Death From Above 1979 style energetic drums and quaking bass tones to nimble psych rock and growling, stomping doom riffs.

Looming is a very live sounding record - tight spaces can be defined and instruments bleeding into each other making for a wonderful swampy soup of an album. Songs fade out and fade in with swirly drones and guitar FX making a big sound for what is only a three piece (Richard Netley and Todd Jordan on guitars/vocals and Carla Foss handling the drums).

Negative Pegasus' sound is like tooling around ATP's Nightmare Before Christmas festival in the wee small hours - at turns disorientating, thrilling and familiar (it is held at Butlin's after all). Closing trip through space Visitation manages to mix mid-'60s psyche jangle with White Hills esque crunching feedback for an undoubted highlight while there's slo-mo glam hooks to be found on Ottoman Silver and breakneck rawk on Psychic Energy. All in all, Looming mixes the freak-out with the freak within for a stirring record.