Hooveriii

I’ve enjoyed the arc of L.A.’s Hooveriii. The outfit, once the solo stint of frontman Bert Hoover (Jesus Sons, MIND MELD), has bloomed into a large scale ensemble, with familiar faces like Gabe Flores (Grave Flowers Bongo Band), Shaughnessy Starr (GROOP, Jesus Sons), Paco Casanova (Prettiest Eyes), and Matt Zuk (Curtis Harding) finding their way into the mix. Ostensibly a reaction to the heaviness of the last album, which found the band at their most overtly psychedelic and guitar-heavy, Pointe expands the band’s sound while stringing a tether to the psych-pop of their past. Touches of ‘60s psych, kosmiche expanses, prog, folk, and even a touch of country all snake into the sound on Pointe. While, on paper, it seems like the band are drifting focus, on tape the record winds up one of their most cohesive yet.

The widened scope allows the band to play with texture, stitching the album together into a cosmic tapestry that pulls their psych-pop strengths to the forefront, while letting a bit of a softer side line the interior. The record oscillates in waves of ecstasy and hazy calm. They float in on fanciful strides for opener “Prom,” before sliding through crystallized folk-pop on “The Tall Grass.” A respite of yearning explodes into colors between “This Rock” and “Can’t You Hear Me Calling,” the album’s most overt pop moment. They walk between the waves, flirting with synth-heavy moments of prog pop over the next few tracks before they lay into album highlight “The Ship That I Sail.” The song was cut down to a digestible few minutes for the radio single a while back, but on record its a nearly 10-minute behemoth, launching out of its pop first half into a groove-led jam that speaks to the band’s stage presence. They cap it as close to kosmiche as they’ve ever been, floating into the ether with Anna Wallace on vocals. While the band has certainly moved through many phases, this record feels like a culmination of their metamorphosis. Hoover and his assembled heads have finally found themselves by turning down the temperature and hanging in the haze.

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