Bandcamp That cover, a tarantula crawling out of a parted, glistening mouth rendered in obsessive graphite, tells you Masheena want to get under your skin rather than into your head, and Let The Spiders In mostly plays that way: ten cuts of warm, fuzzed-up classic hard rock with a heavy-metal edge and a sleaze snarl, built around riffs and a dirty, roughed-up clean voice sat right at the front. The Bergen band, out on Majestic Mountain, are not reinventing anything here. They are chasing the swing and grit of vintage hard rock and, on the strength of the sound alone, largely catching it.
The best thing about the record is a production choice: most of it refuses to be brickwalled. “Going To The Mountain” is the template, a british-crunch guitar tone with real note clarity, a knurled bass filling the low mids, and drums that hit with an honest, wooden, in-a-room punch rather than a triggered click. “In Her Eyes” leans further into a bluesy classic-rock swing with a warm, bellied kick and silky cymbals, and the closer “You Owe Me” keeps a genuine live feel, dynamic and grubby, breaks and a sharp solo instead of a constant wall. This is heavy rock that breathes, and in a genre lane increasingly flattened by loudness that alone is worth something.
It is not all at that level. “Been Waiting” opens the album on its most aggressively compressed, slightly sterile-drum mode, and “Riffy” (fun as the title-track energy is) rides a stiffer, narrower dynamic than the songs around it. A couple of tracks let the low mids crowd around 250 to 400 Hz until the guitars and bass blur, and the sub end is a touch thin when the band go for the throat. The songwriting, too, is comfort-food rather than surprise: you can hear where most of these choruses are going before they arrive. Masheena are excellent at feel and merely good at the twist.
Let The Spiders In is a warm, characterful, refreshingly un-crushed heavy-rock record that puts groove and grit ahead of polish, and when Masheena lock into that organic swing (“Going To The Mountain,” “In Her Eyes,” “You Owe Me”) they are a genuinely good time. It will not rearrange anyone’s furniture, but it sounds like a real band playing real amps in a real room, and there are worse things to be. Fuzz up, windows down.
Warm, fuzzed-up classic hard rock with a heavy-metal edge and a sleaze snarl, and its best quality is a mix that mostly refuses the brickwall. “Going To The Mountain” is the template: british-crunch guitar tone with real clarity, a knurled bass filling the low mids, honest wooden in-a-room drums instead of a triggered click. “In Her Eyes” leans into a bluesy classic-rock swing with a warm bellied kick and silky cymbals, and the closer “You Owe Me” keeps a live, dynamic, grubby feel with breaks and a sharp solo. The reservations: “Been Waiting” opens on the most compressed, sterile-drum mode and “Riffy” rides a stiffer, narrower dynamic, a couple of tracks let the low mids crowd around 250 to 400 Hz, and the sub end is thin when the band go heavy. Feel over surprise, but the organic swing carries it.
Standout tracks: Going To The Mountain, In Her Eyes, You Owe Me
