As mean, moody, and magnificent as it sounds: AMPLIFIER return with ‘Gargantuan’ album

VIA Rockosmos Records, Brit prog rockers AMPLIFIER today release album number eight, ‘Gargantuan,’ a worthy testament to their creativity and evolving sound, and a new chapter for the duo Sel Balamir and Matt Brobin.

Born from late-night jams in a secluded Sussex smithy, Gargantuan is a return to the band’s roots, a raw, electric energy, a pulsating monolithic melodically charged wall of sound.

“Most of the songs on the new record came from much longer jams,” said Balamir. “I’ve just made more concise arrangements from the best qualities. We have put much more emphasis on whatever sounded like a good hook so that we have made this record more song focused.

“One of my favourite quotes from, I think, Seneca The Younger, was his observation that in youth, men have narrow waistbands and wide ideals, but the reverse becomes true as we grow older and that we become more conservative with rigid and fixed ideas. You have to be vigilant to that. That’s one of the reasons we’re still going. We’re flexible. We could just do that, and it wouldn’t be contrary to any masterplan.”

With the heavy drum intros to both opener ‘Gateway’ and ‘Black Hole,’ the crashing riffs of ‘Guilty Pleasure,’ and the ominous sense of menace in ‘Pyramid,’ Gargantuan, the album showcases the duo’s skills with aplomb.

“If you look at the back catalogue, it’s very varied,” adds Balamir. “The band has never been tied into one thing that has peaked and had its heyday. We’ve never fitted into any of those moments. But that’s good – don’t be wiped out by the asteroid.

“I feel that there have been four very definite ages of the band. There was the proto period when just Matt and I were playing together, getting to know each other. Then there was the first period just before getting signed, releasing our first album and the second, Insider. Then there was the third period in which we did The Octopus and everything else up to 2020 when the world shut down.

“That period has very definitely come to an end. I didn’t really appreciate how much of a line 2020 drew under a lot of things, for a lot of people. A lot of people came back from that very fast, but we didn’t. We just took our time and waited to see what would shake out. What has shaken out is ‘Gargantuan.’

“It is a fractal of what the larger thing could have been. It’s a very organic process. We didn’t set out to write the album, it was very much derived from our new approach – of playing in the middle of the night making no sound at all.”

Amplifier are currently on tour, the first as a two-piece, perhaps proving their passion for the core activity of making music remains undiminished

“Our main value is just do what you love for the love of it. If you do that, then anything that comes with it is just a bonus. I’m very optimistic, and I think optimism is really important, not just on a personal level but on a zeitgeist level. If you’re pessimistic about the future, then you’ve already lost the challenge.

“People will look back on Covid, not in a hundred years and not even in fifty years, but probably in ten years and see what it did. Crazy times. As Amplifier, we just adapt. Be the reed. So, we look upon this new album as the start of the next age we’re in. We might be dancing crazy, but sometimes you just need to dance it out. No one else is doing this – so that’s cool.”

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April 11: Northampton, The Black Prince

April 12: Manchester, AATMA

April 18: Birmingham, Sunflower Lounge

April 19: Cardiff, Fuel Rock Club

April 25: Brighton & Hove, The Brunswick

April 26: Ramsgate, Music Hall

May 02: Leicester, The Soundhouse

May 03: Cambridge, The Portland Arms

May 11: Bournemouth, The Bear Cave

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