West

Ripley Johnson is a very busy lad holding down two jobs firstly with the San Francisco noise merchants Moon Duo! and also having a rare old level of fun with the psychedelic garage outfit Wooden Shjips. You may have heard them recently doing a Marc Riley 6 Session where they played versions of the stoner epics "Black Smoke Rise" and "Flight". Like an over excited form teacher your reviewer marked them down for great things. It was like a hybrid of the Secret Machines meets the Doors and a wonderful slice of space rock that Riley could happily describe without any hint of irony as "far out"!

On the evidence of "West" their first properly recorded studio album there is plenty more in the space shuttle tank. Much has been made of the bands debt to British drone rock pioneers "Loop" but frankly another hundred influences could be easily be delineated not least a sly nod towards the current uber obsession for many new bands the great German outfit Neu. What is the case is quite how good and accessible "West" is, despite the fact that the way the album is mixed leads you to question whether the drummers microphone next to his kit was turned off when it was recorded. Let us stress that this is a fuzzy guitar album par excellence but one that is so acid fired it could burn through a thick metal plate. In this sense while there are only seven tracks present at around 35 minutes it will leave you feeling musically full and sated. Starting points should be two central songs firstly the commercial "Lazy Bones" which starts off with a huge riff until a keyboard sneaks in and hey presto it's "the Cramps in orbit". This murky rock'n'roll married to huge guitar psychedelic guitar lines works perfectly as does Johnson's vocals, which portray not one jot of emotion or warmth. In the aforementioned "Flight" the band have produced an almost Spacemen 3 style anthem which starts by cheekily borrowing a slowed down version of the riff from Black Sabbath's "Paranoid" before bending different shapes over its seven minute plus trail of destruction. Keyboards and bass mix here to form a progressive extravaganza that should demand your attention, not least with guitar wig out that Josh Pearson could have happily slotted onto the Texas Jerusalem Crossroads.

With all this distortion/ feedback flying about some acknowledgement of Neil Young is entirely in order and comes in "Home" with a riff that takes a Crazy Horse guitar coda and thrashes the living daylights out of it. All in all its truly wondrous stuff and therefore rather sad to report a large misstep that comes on the last track "Rising". Ever since John Lennon did that backward guitar part on "Tomorrow never knows" every band with access to a studio seems to think it mandatory to try out the soundboard and produce an updated masterpiece. Alas while it's all very clever it doesn't really add that much to the earlier fireworks and detracts from the bands front facing dynamism. So it goes - we should be grateful for what has gone before and should you tire of track seven leave the CD on repeat and skip back to the brilliant echoed keyboard driven opener "Black Smoke Rise" which sounds like the Charlatans on crystal meth.

"West" is very much a surprise package. This is an album that could trouble the charts albeit entering at 189 and peaking at that. But the key point is that Wooden Shjips have produced an album of real galactic grandeur and depth while at the same time managing to infuse it with a dirty rock n roll sensibility. True it unravels in parts but that adds to its charm. Hold on a charming scuzzy space rock album, is that possible? The answer is yes and its called "West" by Wooden Shjips.

It's been a busy year for the badger-bearded psyche overlord Ripley Johnson. Not content with melting minds via his Moon Duo missives, he's also been keeping the Wooden Shjips iron firmly in fire too, and the frazzled space-rock it's produced duly blows this year's best efforts of the former straight out of the water.

Proud enough of his adopted Bay Area to emblazon the album cover with the Golden Gate Bridge, West is then, at its heart, business as usual for this collection of power-psyche pioneers. Muscular repeats and heavy cosmic grooves dominate, which, along with a fuzzed-up guitar riff and stratospheric 60s organ help lend the catchy opener "Black Smoke Rising" an outer-rings dance-floor vibe.

Added to the usual Wooden Shjips palette however we find identifiably classic rock anchors. By way of example, "Home", outside of its vocal, brings to mind Suicide thumbing through AC/DC sheet music. In turn, the patient "Flight" houses a low-in-the-mix riff ripped from the Sabbath catalogue. Decorating each sonic storm without exception, intergalactic guitar work more than makes itself known, beaming directly into the mind's third eye.

As if it were needed, acting to prove the current confidence in the Wooden Shjips camp, West's closer, "Rising", even has the balls to run entirely in reverse, clipping Johnson's vocal unintelligibly as a result. Its drums work back-to-front. That iconic fuzzy drone maintains its pitch.

It would seem mainlined psyche this single-minded works when taken from any direction: North, South, East or West.

Advised downloads: "Black Smoke Rising" and "Lazy Bones

If you like The Stooges or The Doors or Suicide or garage rock or 'Krautrock' or very early Pink Floyd or Hawkwind or Black Sabbath or rockabilly (or, well, anything that's a bit weird and wonderful) you'll love this because it fuses them ALL together!

Fuzzy guitars? You bet. Swirling organ? Oh yes. Pounding drums? You got 'em. Vocals mixed so low they become part of the instrumentation? They're here. Lyrics that are a complete mystery? Yep. (One star docked though for no lyric sheet, let alone any booklet - cheapskate packaging!)

It rocks, it drones, it swings, it shimmers, it chases its tail round and ROUND AND ROUND! So turn the lights off, turn up the volume and let Wooden Shjips transport you to - well wherever you want. Trance On indeed!