Wooden Shjips
West
Thrill Jockey
2011
Rating: 7.5 lazy smokers out of 10
The Bay Area's Wooden Shjips inhabit a nebulous world where psyche rock and kraut rock are best friends, but it wasn't until this record that I really started hearing a strong mid-to-late eighties noisy shoegaze feel with them. What I'm saying is, this record got me musing on the Jesus & Mary Chain, and ain't a damn thing wrong with that. This album is so enjoyable and mesmerizing that it feels like it's over before it even really gets going...helped by the fact that it is only 37 minutes long. If someone told me these were the lost tapes of a band that opened for both Led Zeppelin and Can in 1975 and then disappeared off the map, I'd believe them. It sounds instantly classic, and I mean that in the best way possible. And they are just as mesmerizing live as on record.
As a side note, Phil Manley of Trans Am and the Fuckin' Champs produced this album, which can only help matters out, cause that dude is a bad ass.
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