Wooden Shjips West is a massive album. It’s San Franciscan psych garage rock reinvention is class.
Arguably one of the best new albums this year, West reinstates experimentalism back into music and puts San Francisco back into the heart of great music.
Opening track, Black Smoke Rise, which you can listen to below, is an instant epic hit. It’s a big wall of psychedelic sound that weaves around fuzzy guitars and tripping organs. The same feel continues on Crossing, but slowed down and spaced out.
Wooden Shjips, Black Smoke Rise video
Lazy Bones is bit of a void to begin with, but the echoing, reverb-fuelled guitar riffs that kick in through the middle third pulls it around, and the stuttering feedback ending is ace.
The rock influenced Home starts off straightforward enough with distorted steel and swirling vocals, but as the psych organ builds, the song takes off, getting a little higher by the second. Heavy guitar riffs come in half way through to give it even more presence.
The aptly named Flight is all spaced-out organ that goes wild in parts overlaying the drone rock background of the song. The reverb-laced psych guitar that picks up with the organ at the end is class, with hints of experimental progressions.
Looking Out is much more space drone repetition-heavy than earlier songs and to be honest it makes it a little less interesting. It’s long and doesn’t really seem to go anywhere special, which is a minor blip in an otherwise pretty faultless album. However, it makes a good transition into Rising, which hits your senses like a shot with a wall of organ and revolving percussion. As it moves, sways and trips in and out of perspective it captures the heart of psychedelia and spins out back-to-front look outs.
Wooden Shjips’ third album, West, is a brilliant return, re-invigoration and twist of old school garage rock and psychedelia. The experimental feel of the songs is pretty exciting to listen to, but more than anything the album is simply stand out, head and shoulders unlike anything else that’s getting airplay these days. The Delux Version with the addition of bonus track Phonograph, Lights Out (Peaking Lights Remix) and Wiking Stew (Sonic Boom Remix) is definitely worth hunting down.
Wooden Shjips, West, album review: 4.5/5
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