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Hear Jupiter Lion’s Hypnotic, Krautrock-Inspired ‘Doppelgänger’

Jupiter Lion Doppelgänger BCore Disc premiere

It makes sense that Jupiter Lion would choose “Doppelgänger” for a song title, because what better way to signify fealty to the Krautrock canon than to go with a German term? It’s also a potentially risky move, just because the word in question is so loaded. Are they really trying to pass themselves off as dead ringers for their motorik forefathers? I don’t think so: The Spanish trio makes no bones about its debt to bands like Neu!, but it also has little patience for retro pretense, and its obvious chops make all this parsing of influences effectively moot.

On “Döppelganger,” the band’s first single since their 2013 album Silver Mouth, they dig into their hypnotic rave-ups with muscular gusto, balancing metronomic grooves with whirlwind drum-fill outbursts, and digging into gooey synth-and-bass drones like a truck spinning muddy wheels. Their root notes aren’t so much pedal tones as pedal-to-the-metal tones; trance out if you like, or headbang with abandon. 

Jupiter Lion play Barcelona’s Primavera Sound festival on Saturday, May 31; “Doppelgänger” is out May 26 on BCore Disc. And don’t miss Jupiter Lion’s recent remix for Catalan post-rockers Anímic