Spiritual Beggars are basically a reversion to true rock roots. Although this is no-way a retrogression of musical techniques. They offer intelligent and burnished pieces of euphony, that come across like a junkie of groove. In other words a musical drug, an addictive blend of severity and harmony.
The band started in 1992 with Michael Amott (ex-Carcass, Carnage) and some friends (Spice, Ludwig & Pingo Sj?/small>holm) getting together with the only intention of having fun and jamming out serious grooves. Their fixation was with an age that played for music’s sake, not for capitalistic reasons. Spiritual Beggars was formed and it’s intentions where forged. Catchy harmonies hammered with extreme heaviness - a blend that brought ‘90’s sound, together with ‘70’s influences such as Captain Beyond, Deep Purple and Mountain.
Their first CD (Wrong Again Recs.) was a classic piece of retro-sludge showing off the bands infatuation with great bands such as Black Sabbath and Mahogany Rush. At a time when it seemed everyone was joining in the then stale ‘Death’ scene - Spiritual Beggars exploded with a weighty debut to show that intensity does not only arise where there are pointy-guitars and inverted crosses!
The second opus released by the trio was ‘Another Way to Shine’. Again here the guys showed a love for all things tinted by their favourite decade. It also showed a maturity in their song writing, but now so much as to ignore the rawness and ferocity of their debut.
The ‘Beggars now came back with a third studio album ‘Mantra III’. This will be the record that will really get the band the exposure they need. Not only are the songs mature, well structured and hellishly-groovin’, they are extremely relevant to the music scene presently. They are one of the forerunners of a ‘new’ breed of rock daringly mixing ‘60/70磗 influences to form ‘heavy, riff-based, psychedelia’. The album really does show a more developed sound that exhibits their influences a lot more. The use of their musician friends - Per Wiberg and Stefan Isebring, adds so much to the trios somewhat guitar based sound.
Expect to hear a lot about this band in the future as we are now entering the age of the ‘Beggars!
by Stuart Harland, March AD 1998
Source: http://www.fortunecity.com/tinpan/liceladder/309/biography.html
