THRILL JOCKEY
Chris Parkin
This is album number five for Moon Duo founder Ripley Johnson’s other fuzz-guitarstrafed hypno-rock wanderers and, generally speaking, it’s business as usual. Over a decade in, and the band continue to refract their looping classic-rock jams, reminiscent of Endless Boogie and their ilk, through the trippy and wonkily askew lens of acid-droners Spacemen 3. In short, this is Manna for attendees of the sudden abundance of ‘psych’ festivals taking place all over Europe and the US these days. But the heads-down stoner drive of yore has, certainly on the San Francisco and Portland band’s most recent records, taken on a lighter, groovier touch. Now their nimble wigouts are accompanied by euphoric sax squalls and synapse-frying trickery, as they tap into their West Coast DNA for a record of sun-dazed, liquid-light psychedelia that’s at odds with the pessimism of these times. It’s time to drink the orange sunshine.
VERDICT 7/10