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"Those familiar with Acid Mothers Temple freak-out classics like Electric Heavyland might be in for a surprise with Mantra of Love. Long time stalwart Cotton Casino starts off the first track. It starts almost gentle, then builds and builds until the guitars roar, the keyboards do a space gurgle, and the rhythm section gallops. It is invigorating stuff. The second track starts off in space. Psychedelic keyboards launch the track and are in the forefront throughout. Then, Cotton's voice is heard, albeit somewhat buried. There's a wonderfully cinematic feel to the drones and swoops of the synthesizers and instrumentation. You could lose yourself in a musical landscape such as this, and I suspect that's the point. It comes across as Krautrock-y in the best sense."
"Acid Mothers Temple at their best always provide a musical journey, a feeling of traveling to places/things exotic. There's also a good compositional structure to the disc. It's a bit like film or a painting. There's color, drama and a nagging, implied narrative to hold the whole thing together. AMT have given up heaviness in favor of an expanded sensorial palette. That said, there's a depth and maturity in this album which bodes well for the future growth of Kawabata and company. Especially heartening is their use of traditional sounding Japanese styles. If great rock music is based on interpretation and mutation, you don't have to squint to see the fish crawling out onto the beach."
"Far gone and out on the interplanetary tides of psych-rock, Japan's Acid Mothers Temple rarely lets a year pass without beaming down new frequencies from their warped galaxy. The first movement, "La Le Loî," highjacks a traditional Occitan tune for a half hour-long ascent. Returning vocalist Cotton Casino renders the provincial melody perfectly paranormal while group guru Makoto Kawabata shreds in feverish psychotropic bouts awash in tweaked analog twiddles. At fifteen minutes, second movement "LíAmbition Dans Le Miroirî" clocks in at half the length though seems the epic center due to its free form drift of skybound urps, tangled guitar clusters and spectral chants."
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