Wooden Shjips – West

A remarkably dense, intense affair

Although just seven songs long, the third album from San Francisco psychedelic rockers Wooden Shjips is a remarkably dense, intense affair. Dominated by layers of droning, fuzzy, feedbacked guitar and rough-edged but soporific swirls of hazy, hypnotic organ, the likes of ‘Lazy Bones’ and ‘Flight’ swell to magnificent proportions as swathes of ’60s-inspired sounds are given a nihilistic, 21st century makeover. Any longer, and ‘West’ may well have suffered as a result, but as it is, though far from condensed and concise, when final track ‘Rising’ fades out with unsettling dystopian unease, the immediate compulsion is to just play the whole damn thing over again.

8/10

Words by MISCHA PEARLMAN

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