Drone rock is a difficult beast to enjoy. Once you’re past a-minute-and-a-half you wonder what the difference is between it and any other annoyingly persistent sound. That being said, if you can get into it, there is a lot of great albums to be enjoyed.
Wooden Shjips’ new album Back To Land, unfortunately is not one. Labelled as spacey psychedelic rock, the album feels more like the work of a burnt out drone/psych band who have fallen into a near vegetative state thanks to their drug binges that lasted years on end.
Album opener Back To Land sets everything off to bad start, with overly insistent reverb and echo and not a whole lot of anything else for underlying substance. In fact, the entire album is like this. Ghouls, Other Stars and Servants try to cover it up by playing even louder, but it doesn’t hide the fact that these guys are nuts for reverb and echo.
The only songs that do make you sit up and notice are Ruins, which is “not bad” rather than “enjoyable”, and These Shadows which is actually a really good song, so much so that the album closes with an acoustic version. Unfortunately, two version of one good song isn’t enough to save the album.
In a year filled with brilliant and clever drone and psych rock albums, Wooden Ships’ release just seem bored and lazy in comparison. With the insistent reverb and echo laid thick over the album, dull and irritating chords on unremarkable and often annoying songs (save These Shadows), Back To Land is a huge misstep from a great band.
BY DANIEL PRIOR
