Back to Land
The fourth long-player by these drone-rock masters continues where *West* left off, treading a slightly sunnier path where the bramble and gloom are cleared away as the labyrinthian rhythms carve themselves even deeper in the listener’s psyche. *Back to Land* opens with the utterly enticing—or should we say entrapping—title track: there’s no leaving once you’ve gotten to the two-minute mark. The churning, blood-warming organ is turned up in the mix, and throughout the record, adding a visceral kind of time-travel vibe to the party. There’s a Doorsy sensuousness to “These Shadows” and a pedal-to-the-floor, Modern Lovers spirit on the jet-propelled “Ghouls”; Ripley Johnson’s pining on “Everybody Knows” is heartbreaking, though he could be singing about the Flat Earth Society or the surety of paying taxes. Burning through the Shjips’ foggy cocoon to decipher lyrics is about as easy as *not* tapping your foot to their relentless and irresistibly hypnotic metronomic motion. By land or by sea, the Shjips deliver the goods.
Wooden Shjips’ rise to prominence from the psychedelic underground to the rock and roll overground has been a steady sojourn. With each consecutive release, the band has found new ways of transforming heady psychedelic rock into minimalist masterpieces, bridging the gap between the woozy freeness of Les Rallizes Denudes and Crazy Horse and the tightly wound simplicity of Suicide and the Velvet Underground. Back To Land, the quartet’s follow-up to West, is the first Wooden Shjips record to be conceived outside of San Francisco. Ripley Johnson and Omar Ahsanuddin moved to Oregon, where the lush climates became a major influence on the songwriting. The band’s scope expanded to include more earthy, grounded tones, such as the acoustic guitar, without abandoning their modernist psych core. There is an increased brightness to many of the songs on Back To Land, an easiness with which the band has flirted with in the past but never fully realized until now. The nervy urgency of West has evolved into an assured confidence, from the alliterative, interlocking guitar and organ groove of “Ruins” to the languidly compelling guitar solos of “Servants.” The addition of the acoustic guitar to the band’s textural palate is coupled here with some of the most melodically direct songs the band has written. Still, there are still plenty of signature Shjips songs, with distorted riffs, modal keys, and a steady, crisp drum sound unfolding intensely while the elongated melodic guitar lines drift in and out of the foreground. On Back to Land this energy is captured in clear detail, designed as an immersive experience rather than a passive blasting. Back To Land was laid to tape at Jackpot Recording Studios in Portland by Kendra Lynn and mixed by Larry Crane. It was recorded over an 11-day session, resulting in some of the most detailed and spacious recordings of their career. Back To Land is a breakthrough record for the Wooden Shjips: nuanced, varied and utterly addictive. The band will be touring extensively in the US and Europe November through February.
Wooden Shjips’ fourth album heads further into the earthier direction of its 2011 predecessor, West, and casts even more radiant rays of Golden State sunshine onto the band’s once-foreboding hypno-drone-rock.
San Francisco space-rock veterans' fourth full-length brings the changes - so subtly you might not notice.
San Francisco's Wooden Shjips have developed a reputation for exposing the fuzzier layers of a repetitive psych 'n' roll…
Somewhere between 2011's West and 2013's Back to Land, members of the Bay Area psych rock act Wooden Shjips left their picturesque home base of San Francisco for the rainier environments of Portland, Oregon.
The West Coast singer and guitarist has been on a roll, dropping four albums in two and a half years between the Krautrock-leaning Moon Duo and Wooden Shjips.
Ripley Johnson and Omar Ahsanuddin of Wooden Shjips recently abandoned San Francisco for more Oregonian pastures. Their latest, therefore, is 50% more donut and 50% less burrito.
Album review: Wooden Shjips - Back To Land. Clash assesses the fourth studio LP from the San Francisco band, released on Thrill Jockey
The last album from minimalist motorik four-piece Wooden Shjips, 2011's West, was notable because it was the first time the band had ever stepped into a...