Life comes at your fast! One minute, you’re a band that’s gracefully fumbling through the scene trying to see what sticks, what works, what doesn’t, and exploring all sorts of inspirations to really expand your possibilities as you wander in the dark of the underground, but then it’s in the next minute that you’re suddenly a name that catches ears, locks eyes, and really goes for it in your own way. At any time, such a band can come out of nowhere with no warning. Barely two years after their first EP, it’s with their second that The Big Rip poises itself as one such surprise that holds deep potential.

I still constantly find myself impressed with what the stoner scene is capable of despite how spread thin the sound can seem at times, but it’s because of bands like The Big Rip that we’re able to always come back to the style and not just find something interesting, but know in our very souls that it’s not long before we come across something special. Pound for pound and without losing so much as an inch of their power to make for a more immersive experience, The Big Rip shows us intense growth and a staggering breadth of capability with the four tracks of “Olympus Mons”. Explorative and reverential of what has come before but always making damn sure to make the performance their own, it’s through meandering atmospheres and tantalizing riffs that The Big Rip commands a massive presence that’s as captivating as the creations’ namesake. A psychedelic trip overloaded with peaks and valleys that have their own treasures for those willing to take the hand of The Big Rip, it’s throughout the whole of “Olympus Mons” that the cosmos itself feels like but a touch away with every moment having something to offer you that opens the mind’s eye, raises your eyebrows out of raw euphoria, and lifts you up into the astral plane with riffs gentle and invigorating guiding your way while the supernovas twist and writhe at the whim of this rising act. There’s much to uncover in what feels like hardly time at all as “Olympus Mons” progresses, but I implore you to allow The Big Rip to take your hand for a trip you will almost assuredly keep coming back to time after time.

Heavy Trip, Desert Collider, Sunguine, Emu, Black Sky Giant, Tropic Santos, Acid Magus; all those names and more are those that are rising in their own realms adjacent to stoner and psychedelia that deserve to be made note of for the excellence they’ve already managed to bring to the table despite their current small catalogs. It’s in witnessing the birth of something grand that a real journey can be undertaken with anything seeming possible. The Big Rip more than earns the right to be hailed along all of them for what’s been pulled off in just four tracks. Without wasting so much as a moment and opening up an entirely new dimension of possibilities, it’s the whole of “Olympus Mons” that demands your attention.

“Olympus Mons” releases on August 22nd!

LISTEN to The Big Rip on Bandcamp here.

LIKE The Big Rip on Facebook here.

FOLLOW The Big Rip on Instagram here.