For those with the good fortune (and talent) to make an indelible mark on the music world, there are those who achieve mainstream fame, and then like a concurrent shadow are those so vital that their creative essence is absorbed into the very fabric of the music world.
They may not be household names, but their presence courses through the musical bloodstream and those who know know. And this (if it were unclear what I’m moving towards) is my introduction to Chris Goss. Singer, guitarist, songwriter, producer. A man with the Blues running through his soul and a shamanistic spirit.
Who the hell gets Ginger Baker to join their band in the early 90s? This guy. Who produces every iconic Kyuss record, informs the sound of Queens of the Stone Age, plays with and produces Mark Lanegan Band, and has UNKLE go to them for numerous collaborations? This guy. One of Scream vocalist Pete Stahl’s favourite singers? I think you get the point by now.
Masters of Reality (being the band Goss formed in the late eighties that would at one time feature the aforementioned Mr. Baker) last graced us with their presence all the way back in 2009 with Pine / Cross Dover.
Last year’s shimmering, glistening tale of “Sugar” teased where Goss was headed with his first Masters of Reality record in fifteen years, as The Archer (Mascot Label Group) glides into view.
Yes, there are absolutely moments of stomping, blues rock. There’s the dark grandiose Rock Opera of “Mr. Tap n’ Go” and the funky eighties-Bowie-evoking swing of “I Had a Dream,” but even in the album’s livelier moments where Goss launches into a wild guitar solo (as at the end of the ghostly, gothic swing of “Chicken Little”) this is a different Masters of Reality from the one that brought you “The Blue Garden” or “Third Man on the Moon.”
From the man who once talked of making “out of whack” records, The Archer follows in the great tradition of Chris Goss recordings that plot whichever path they wish to on the wide, musical, desert highway. Deeply soulful and with just that taste of psychedelia that makes you wonder twenty minutes in about those mushrooms you found in the woods.
Goss knows how to write a Desert-Rock riff (some might say he invented the whole genre), but The Archer follows a more ethereal, reflective muse. Yes, “Sugar” has its climactic, soaring, beautifully-layered Rock crescendo, and the dark, sweeping string textures and funky groove of “It All Comes Back To You” builds to a driving, Rock chorus, but the album is largely a story of slow builds and laid-back grooves—and Goss’ velvety, ghost-on-the-highway voice, like a spirit from the other side.
The Archer will surely poke you just a little bit to the left, such that the buildings seem to slant every so slightly and the sky isn’t quite the colour you thought it was, while it hypnotises you with its otherworldly siren song.
And what’s not to love and admire about that? Chris Goss is not a national treasure; he’s an intergalactic treasure.
Buy the album here:
https://www.mascotlabelgroup.com/collections/masters-of-reality
9 / 10
TOM OSMAN
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