In the circumstances, the last decade seems an unlikely time for ’60s psychedelia to reassert itself in the States. Maybe everyone who could still get their saucy little hands on a tab or two picked up a guitar, and everyone who missed out instead thrived on the absurd theatre life in America has since become. Whatever the reason, psych-rock bands are about as common as hens’ beaks in a battery farm at the moment, and there’s been plenty of time for the old grab bag of musical clichés to stagger out from the graveyard like a Mama Cass zombie.
West gets top marks straight off the bat for a lack of sitar solos and riffs plagiarised from Can’s Tago Mago, automatically classing it above whatever recent Brian Jonestown Massacre side-project was spawned by Anton Newcombe’s latest hissy-fit.
It’s a struggle for any band to be innovative, doubly so for a group of San Franciscans so obviously in thrall to the six months in 1967 when the Haight was the centre of the universe. To a large extent they still succeed. They don’t get too eclectic with their choice of instruments and pedals, and despite a few abrupt changes of tempo between songs, the record maintains the feel of a continuous, wistful dirge from start to finish. To some, it’ll be a little too firmly anchored in the spirit of their earlier releases to be genuinely exciting. To others, it’ll be a wonderful soundtrack for staring in the mirror for hours on end after a telepathic conversation with a tree.
BY SEAN GLEENSON
Best Track: Home
If You Like These, You’ll Like This: Passover THE BLACK ANGELS, Howls from the Hills DEAD MEADOW
In A Word: Shjitcheaaaa.
