The Liverpudlian loonies unfurl their dozenth album, including collaborations with Cosmic Dead and Can’s Damo Suzuki, so you can guess where their heads are coming from.

Unlike earlier releases which featured sidelong tracks approaching/exceeding 20 minutes, Graft is more concisely structured along the lines of Trail (Critical MASS 2005) and Axis (Agitated 2012). But “structured” doesn’t necessarily mean straight-jacketed into short, radio-friendly soundbytes. ‘Deep Is The Air’ enters the room on vibrating synths and hesitant guitar pluckings, setting the mellow mood soon to be shattered by the Motorhead-banging throb of ‘Zeta Potential’. Steve Ashton pounds the shit out of his kit like a madman stamping out a fire while flames of a different sort shoot out of Joe Hirons’ and Neil Murphy’s twin-guitar assault.

<a href="https://cful.bandcamp.com/album/mugstar-graft">Mugstar – Graft by Mugstar</a>

‘Ghost Of A Ghost’ is as ominously amorphous as its title suggests, stalking into the nether regions of your skull like some demon biker cruising across the endless darkness of some desolate desert landscape. ‘Cato’ is a hyperkinetic dropkick to the skull, but order is restored throughout the creepy, crawly hypnotic ‘Low, Slow Horizon’, full of meandering, far-off guitar strokings and occasional keyboard flourishes not unlike The Doors’ ‘Riders On The Storm’. A 21st century instrumental take on a revered classic, perhaps?

Closer ‘Star Cage’ chugs along at the pace of intergalactic space travel piloted by Hawkwind or the Ozric Tentacles, pingponging off planets and skulls along the bumpy ride. A fitting finale to another heavy head trip aboard starship Mugstar.

Jeff Penczak

Mugstar – ‘Graft’ (Cardinal Fuzz | Centripetal Force, 2020)