The Wire
Issue 261, November 2005

If 2003’s Ascend was bass heavy, then this time around Dub Gabriel drags every other element up in the mix to create a massively dense sound that hovers between the incomparable Mutamassik and the later work of the irreplaceable Muslimgauze. After “War In The Poppy Fields,” with Arad Nasarzadeh chopping out on saz over martial percussion and an obligatory Gnawa-style flute loop, it starts getting serious. “Zooklyn” is a big pan-Arabian street parade with elephantine percussion and clashing outsize cymbals – a slow, deliberate lurch towards the rest of the album’s feast.
Dub Gabriel’s concerns are more cultural than the consistently highly defined political focus of his sonic mentor Bryn Jones – hence the dedication to the major Sufi poet of divine love, Jalaluddin Rumi, on the major album’s most lyrical and meditative cut, “Rumi Go Through Me.” But the monstrous short organ drone that opens and threads through the densely textured “Garden In The Light In The Shade Of Grey” scores the greatest impact on the set, while triggering a surely impossible longing to hear Terry Riley in Dub.