Jim Griffin takes off on his galactic explorations once again with his expansive new release THE COUNTERBLAST on Sound Effect Records. Featuring guest vocals on two tracks by US vocalist extraordinaire David Reece (Accept, Bonfire, Bangalore Choir), the album maintains the progressive rock bombast and Lovecraftian storyline of previous album “The Signal” on its opening three tracks. Fans of Ireland’s finest and much-missed psych-rock instrumentalists Zombie Picnic will be pleased to hear that lead-off track “Cosmic Law and Order” is Jim’s version of a long-lost non finito opus by those Irish rockers of yore. Sound bites of Carl Sagan and Charles Lawson drive the track in classic Zombie Picnic style to a suitably strange denouement. Serving to set the scene for follow-on track “Xenocide”, which mixes Jim’s love of Sabbath-style doom with a Crimsonesque saxophone arrangement provided by long-time collaborator Robbie Costelloe. David Reece delivers a rock vocal masterclass recounting Jim’s tale of ultimate crime and punishment, whilst the entire track is driven to the edge by the progressive metal drumming of Limerick’s own Keith McCoy (Hedfuzy, Symbiotic Tomorrow). Closing out a side which collectively makes up Jim’s heaviest solo offerings to date, is “A Counterblast to Astral Travel”. This two-parter swings from punk infused alien rant to acoustic-backed poison pen letter. It’s a mania-fueled call-and-response piece in the style of Peter Green’s Oh Well if it were played on a return journey aboard the “Event Horizon”. But flip the vinyl and the story flips too. The three-part epic “Sleeping Generation” closes out the album with a more introspective and musically textured approach. Jim takes over vocal duties for these tracks and provides some personal context for the space operatics of the opening three-track salvo. The impact of the Challenger space shuttle disaster on the young boy he was in 1986 is the launch point for a dawning suspicion that his generation was caught napping somewhere between the ideals of the 1960’s and the very real global crises of today. Mirroring such personal reflections, the music combines Jim’s more acoustic and bucolic electronic leanings to be heard on his earlier solo offerings with the heavier riffage of his Zombie Picnic and The Fewer, The Better band days.