If you’re gonna name your new song “Vader,” that shit better be pretty menacing. Boston psych collective Ghost Box Orchestra have always been about the sonic desert-road journeys, and more of a mind fuck than hate fuck, so there’s never been anything inherently evil about their music. And yet “Vader,” the first track off May’s Vanished LP, is just that: a feral groan trudges forward over mechanical doom for more than seven minutes, and terror unfolds slowly until you’re just consumed by a swirling, ominous sound. There’s a brief moment of air right around the middle, like when an enraged maniac lifts your head momentarily out of the toilet just before he shoves your grill back underwater, if only so you can look into his eyes one last time before you die. It’s a bit uneasy, then, that this is slated as Track 1.
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GBO hit the road for a string of dates starting tonight at the Sierra Grill in Northampton, then hit Philly tomorrow night, and swing back to our hood with a gig Saturday, March 25 at PA’s Lounge in Somerville. Bring a weapon for self-defense.