Album of the day: White Hills – H-p1

Praise for White Hill‘s H-p1 from San Francisco’s aQuarius Records:  Latest blast of psychedelic space rock from these NYC sonic assassins, and like all the previous White Hills jams, it’s a good one, but in some ways, it’s actually a lot different. Still present are the usual space rockisms, swirling effects drenched guitars, pounding drums, vox buried in the mix, extended droned out jams and seriously psychedelic leads, but the tone is different, and the arrangements are more jagged, more varied.

Apparently this records is thematically focused on the band’s anti government and anti-corporation sentiments, and we have to say, it sort of suits them, right out of the gate, opening track ‘The Condition Of Nothing’ is a killer, a lot heavier and darker than much of the White Hills that have came before.

Dark buzzing guitars, woozy effects drenched atmosphere, motorik drumming, chanted dead eyed vox, some seriously caustic and crunchy FX. The guitar tones thick and super distorted. The sound ominous and sinister. The roiling riffage infused with a pulsing droning thrum, but then there’s some super melodic female vox, courtesy of WH bassist Ego Sensation, which lead right into a cool, lurching breakdown that sounds almost pasted in.

But it’s a cool jagged shift, and just makes the track sound that much more fierce when the band swoop back into their churning droned out space psych, which is also laced with plenty of crunchy chug, and then comes the solo, which is super noisy. A little shreddy, a wild tangle of synths and guitars, all wound up into a whirling blown out wah wah drenched squall, before slipping right into that breakdown again. But this time stretching it way out into a hazy, druggy sprawl of synthy buzz, woozy and washed out and hauntingly dreamy, playing out till the end. Shit, just one song in, and we’re thinking this may be the best WH record yet.

After a brief experimental synth / noise interlude, the band slip into a slow burn lope, all blissed out minimal rhythm, layered hushed buzz, beneath softly swirling clouds of spaced out FX, quickly building to thick slab of reverb and distortion drenched hypnorock, mesmerizing and cyclical. The effects getting more and more pronounced, threatening to swallow the rest of the music whole, heavy and heady, but still sorta blissed out and laid back.

The next track is another angry groover, a thick propulsive rhythm, some pulsing synthbass buzz, like a supercharged Circle, locked tight for nearly 13 minutes, the sort of jam that might as well have gone on for 13 more. The main groove static and solid, while all around the band unleash some of their most twisted effects and warped atmospheres, adding woozy melodic layers, of jagged shards of processed hiss and static, some warbly almost new wavey synths. The whole thing, fuzzy and thick and totally and irresistibly mesmerizing.

White Hills kick out the jams on ‘Upon Arrival’, a synth soaked guitar heavy Stooges-y stomp, the riffiest and poppiest of the bunch, hard and heavy but hooky as hell, and still appropriately spaced out, before slipping into a suite of experimental ambience. A thick, buzzy, almost funereal organ dronescape. A blown out synthdrone sprawl, all low end pulsations, warped FX, thick processed guitars, doom drenched downtuned riffage, and sci-fi spacey ambience.

A weird drum heavy, tribal rhythmic workout, horn like tones, stretched into layered drones, glitched out electronics, propuslive and almost dancey, before the whole thing gets all tangled up and processed into a crunchy garbled smear of squelches, which brings us to the epic 17 minute closer, which is basically the ultimate White Hills jam.

Starting out all riffy and Stooges-y, before evolving into a heart of the sun psychedelic guitar jam, then slowing down to a druggy low slung crawl, only to explode right back into it, another stomping groove, wild leads, over thick crunchy riffs, and woozy walking basslines, building to a majestic ur-drone bass-heavy psychedelic space drift, before fading out into several minutes of gradually fading space-y swirl.

Fuck yeah, so good, and utterly kick ass all the way through, assuming we can get past that kick ass opener. As always, psychedelic spacelords and ladies need look no further than this for their cosmic fix.

At 40 years old, Aquarius is the oldest independent record store in San Francisco. We try to only carry music we love, and we’re always searching for more new, cool, weird and wonderful music. All of which we then share with you, our loyal customers.

Tags: Album of the day, Aquarius Records, H-p1, psychedelica, space rock, Thrill Jockey, white hills

This entry was posted on Monday, June 20th, 2011 at 1:55 pm and is filed under 2011, Album of the Day, Roadburn Recommended . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.