Holy Mountain
Restraint is not a word you usually associate with psychedelia. “Excessive”, yes, “silly”, perhaps, but “restrained”? Nonetheless Dos, Wooden Shjips’ follow-up to their 2007 self-titled album, is for the most part a very restrained psych record. On each of the album’s five expansive tracks the bass and drums are pared back to a hypnotic krautrock throb, and while the guitars enjoy a few overblown wigout moments – most notably the glorious degeneration of the 11-minute “Down By The Sea” – these are always underpinned and kept in check by the intense metronomic rhythm section.
The overall impression is one of control: lean and minimal grooves with just a sprinkling of surf shimmer and psych fuzz on top. The vocals are even less of a presence than on the previous album – such as they are, they come on intermittent and too cool for school, offhand delivery mixed low amid the pulsing drone. Very early Velvets, very Suicide. In terms of their contemporaries, Wooden Shjips definitely share parallels with fellow West Coast fuzzmongers Comets on Fire and Crystal Antlers, but the feel of this record is more akin to the taut noisy minimalism of Connecticut’s Magik Markers. By the final track, “Fallin’”, even the signature fuzz has disappeared from the mix, with just a sunny organ line, reverbed vocals and bright guitars carried along by the everpresent motorik groove.
Precise and mesmeric, it brings to mind the spellbinding repetition of Harmonia or NEU! more than any of the traditional psychedelic touchstones.
-Anton Allen-
