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Every now and then, amidst this proliferation of three-minute radio-friendly rock tunes, a good old-style guitar-heavy track is necessary, a ride that takes you along for no less than five minutes, gets lodged in your head and sends electrical waves throughout your joints that start moving nervously, eyes closed to chase images emerging from the darkness as your head sways.
If for you a musical piece is something more than just a pleasant tinkling of sounds, an intense experience, then this album must be part of your collection of emotions. Am I gushing too much? Facts are needed to back up what I'm saying! So crank up the volume on your stereo, because more than an hour of sound made up of intertwined and chasing rock guitars, bass and drums calling the charge, singing and sound as indie American as it gets...
Every piece is a little adventure where the speed increases and decreases; the sound opens up, swells, and then explodes, a bit like a horse being tamed or the sea during a tide change. It's all supported by a tremendous and continuous guitar work, finally being played as they should, which turn into a canvas upon which to craft melodies that are torn apart and decomposed, ripped away by the wind of emotions. The initial "Goin' Against Your Mind" sets the tone for the entire work: almost nine minutes where the singing starts only after a long introduction that allows the relentless rhythmic bed to create that cozy environment that will soon be completely unsettled and will literally explode at the six-minute mark, where the guitars will scream and you'll already be far away, where no one can catch you, even though you haven’t moved at all.
"Liar" starts with a lysergic arpeggio into which the bass prominently steps to support the piece, with rich guitar arpeggios creating an ever-full texture: that always "up" drum invites your hands to clap to the beat. "Muscular" is the only adjective that comes to mind to define the rock ballad "Wherever You Go"—a tribute to seventies southern rock that then climbs along very acidic paths. A little further along, here is the radiant "Conventional Wisdom" with the solo that outlines the coordinates of the track, which stops at a brisk tempo, runs, caresses, and then dashes away like a surly child.
"Gone" is a mid-tempo track where the organ contributes to providing the emphasis that will then flow into post-rock lashings, which suddenly rises lyrically. "Mess with me" is an oriental-sounding stoner rock that leaves no escape, with a background chime that painstakingly prepares a bridge in 4/4 that mixes sixties influences with electric acid-folk, totally and absolutely unpredictable from the piece's progression.
Undoubtedly, it is an album that cannot afford a distracted listen due to the length and construction of the tracks: you cannot cut the listening in half, also because you'll surely be captivated and will want to continue the journey. It's very "classic" in its sounds, but with writing and arrangements several notches above current standards.
An extremely important detail: in this album, apart from the initial part of "Conventional Wisdom", there are no catchy melodies.
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