Excuse me, there's a bunch of stoners from the late 60's early 70's that want their jam back maaaannn!

RED VOID are exactly that.  They have all the chops and vibes of a Stoner jam band, tripping on too much home-made acid while listening to early BLACK SABBATH, or BLUE CHEER, maybe a bit of CREAM, some HENDRIX.  And hey man, that's no bad thing, for a song or two.

Formed as a father and son project in 2009, and after swapping instruments around, it became clear they had outgrown their trusty drum machine, and sort the services of a fellow space cadet to bang the rocks together, and the traditional power trio were born.

"PHASE II" is essentially a collection of honed jammed songs.  I use the term honed loosely, because some of there are long instrumental workouts, so what the original jams must have been like, well, I wonder.

This exercise is a real conundrum.  This is some of the most amazing playing I've heard for a very long time, and I absolutely love the whole vibe and tone of the music.  These work-outs are have been honed, refined and allowed to gestate an breath, but that said listening to the album as a whole is very hard going.  It is relentless, it comes at you like a spaced out battering ram, again and again and again. Each piece in its own right is a brilliant thing, but when you are on to the 4^th or 5^th slab, too much is can be bad thing I'm afraid to say.

This is a real problem for me because in bite sized chunks this is right up my street, but there is no light and shade, nothing to allow you to catch your breath after one monolithic chunk of instrumental mind-fuckery finishes before the next one comes along to screw with you some more.

No doubt the whole thing is expertly delivered, but the sheer quantity and little diversity makes it feel like you are listening to one extremely long intense freak-out, from the backing band whilst the vocalist went off to change outfits, or score some 'ludes, or get blown by a groupie backstage, it felt I was waiting for them to stagger back onstage to blast through their latest hit.

Arrggg! This is the most frustrating collection I've ever had to review.  Each piece is brilliant, on its own.  But the whole thing is just too to much.  So hard to score.