FREE RIDE | VINYL RECORD (LP)

Double LP version. Causa Sui's Free Ride is finally back in print after being sold out for more than a decade! The original single-LP version, released in 2007 on Elektrohasch, has been selling for ridiculous prices on Discogs and eBay. Even the CDs are sought-after collectors' items, almost impossible to find, until now. Imagine a tidal wave sweeping up from the 1960s through the 1970s, then cresting in the 1990s before finally crashing on the shore of the present; that's what Free Ride sounds like. This is the "heavy psych" album of the Causa Sui catalog, one out of only two albums they recorded with a lead singer, and the most direct-sounding collection of tracks the band has done to date. The sonic experimentation and curious song structures that also define later Causa Sui records are there (just listen to those echo-treated flutes in "Passing Breeze"), but what really ties this record together is an unashamed appreciation of the grand rock tradition of the previous four decades. One can literally feel how the young lads had been absorbing endless amounts of Blue Cheer, Led Zeppelin, Mudhoney, Black Sabbath, and Kyuss before cooking up these seven tracks. There's no shortage of killer riffs and Bonham-esque grooves. The culmination is the epic breathtaking acid-rock finale that takes up the entire second disc: the 15-minute "Newborn Road" and the 20-minute extended live version of the band's signature track "El Paraiso", captured in front of a mesmerized crowd at Roadburn on the very day Free Ride was released. It's impossible not feel swept away by the Hendrixian glory of these two cuts, as they fly from tranquil noodlings to the most thunderous peaks. This is the kind of album where one dropa the needle and rides it all the way to the end, as if overwhelmed by an awesome natural force. Includes 20-minute bonus track recorded live at the Roadburn Festival in 2007. Remastered by Jonas Munk.