Raccoo-oo-oonBehold Secret Kingdom
(05.2007, Release the Bats)
9.5/10
Behold Secret Kingdom will drive you nuts. This is jungle fever music if I've ever heard it. Like a pack of hallucinogenic shaman driving away evil spirits, Raccoo-oo-oon embrace a primitive tribalism set to obliterate your sense of gravity. Avoiding almost any reference points, it can be difficult to describe the tangled forest of sound that these Iowa City upstarts have grown. Partially comparable to Here Comes The Indian era Animal Collective but with much more bite - perhaps a hellishly possessed Akron/Family on the brink of a sweaty spontaneous combustion might offer up a hint. Upping the production efforts of previous releases, Behold Secret Kingdom is the CD debut (if you don't count CDRs that were reissued on CD format) for the infinitesimal awesomeness that is Raccoo-oo-oon. The new level of production fits the band well; magnifying its ferociousness. And that name! I don't know how to get around how ridiculously terrific it is. On a logical scale two o's would seem to be enough for any band, but after one dip in the fiery swamps of Behold Secret Kingdom two o's seems far too few and six a perfectly necessary amount. This is serious backwoods psychedelics of the sort that you might find in the swamps of a Louisiana witch doctor community. Behold Secret Kingdom destroys rock aesthetics and conjures the most terribly wonderful noise rock you never knew that you absolutely needed. Well, you do - this is a record for surviving zombie attacks and braving cannibalistic tribesman – you need this album, just in case. A serious contender for album of the year.
-Mr. Thistle
Raccoo-oo-oon – "Mirror Blanket"
