Far out! San Francisco Psychedelicists Wooden Shjips take their time. Both between albums, recently released V, (yes it's their fifth), is their first since 2013's Back To The Land, and also during them. There's only one song on V shorter than five minutes, (it's the one posted here Already Gone), and that's all just as it should be.
V is probably a good record to take drugs to, though I'm not going to road-test that theory. It brings to mind the line in the Chambers Brothers timeless 1967 single Time Has Come Today, 'And my soul has been psychedelicised..' You suspect this happened long ago to Wooden Shjips.
That's not meant as a criticism. Quite the opposite. The band take most spaced out, improvisatory elements of late Sixties West Coast Rock, Quicksilver Messenger Service, Grateful Dead, Santana, fuse them with more disciplined Spacemen 3 and Spiritualised drones, and set the controls for the heart of the sun. From the get go, you feel as if you're in very safe hands. There's not much variety on here, and you may take some time to tell individual tracks apart, but that's very much the point. the band have trimmed back the more punky aspects of their sound from previous records and gone for full beatitude mode without ever losing their distinctive sound, it's quite clear who this is. And I'd say the whole exercise has been highly successful.
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