Loop - Heaven's End [2CD Remastered] (1987/2008)

Had Loop been present at Woodstock, they probably would have hatched a plan to obtain all the brown acid that Wavy Gravy warned spectators not to take. After hearing his declaration that "The brown acid's a bummer, man!," Robert Hampson and his droogs would have likely gone incognito as security staff, offering to rid the concert goers of the bad trips waiting to be had. They would have procedeed to ingest what they could and record something like Heaven's End, a filler-free release of warped senses and personal demons, inner-space blues, and psychotic dementia. It sounds like a vast toxic wasteland where all negativity is dumped by the soul. Simple, tense riffs repeat until a state of hypnosis and emotional emptiness remain. "Heaven's End" itself sounds like the soundtrack to a missing hallucination scene from Easy Rider; shifting and shuffling percussion and twisted vapor trails of guitar mutate into utter mush. Samples from 2001 pop up throughout the record, if the music itself wasn't enough to carry a prevailing sense of paranoia and claustrophobia. But all the late-'60s references become stifling in conveying what Loop did. Along the way, Loop gutted all the spiritual mysticism from Can, taking their repetition. They also borrow Suicide's minimal charge and early PiL's wretched anguish, making something rather unique from their influences. Though Heaven's End demonstrates a crystal clear indebtedness to Detroit's high-energy mayhem of the late '60s, it's actually the gunmetal gray sound of the Stooges and MC5 filtered through decades of urban decay. [Part of an extensive Loop remaster/reissue program across late 2008 and early 2009, overseen by Robert Hampson and released on his Reactor label, this edition of Heaven's End contains a second disc. An alternate mix of "Rocket USA," the original mixes of "Soundhead" and "Head On," and the band's first session for John Peel's BBC program are included.]