Wooden Shjips – “Staring At The Sun”

Looks like this year some perennial faves are cleaning up, with Amen Dunes already ditching any trappings of fuzzed psych for a dose of refined pop drippings, and now the cataclysmic scuzz of Wooden Shjips takes a back seat to languid puddles of guitar laced with strums on their latest. Actual strums on a Shjips track, I think that may be a first, but while the fire may not be the focus on “Staring At The Sun” there’s still plenty of psychedelic drip happening here. Between Moon Duo and Wooden Shjps, Ripley Johnson’s always been able to cull from the “Planet Caravan” school of warbled psych, but here he leans in hard. The guitarists can be heard flecking the track ever so slightly with growls of guitar but generally finds himself in the reclining position, going full Spiritualized to create a track that blossoms with bliss.

I’m all for a band’s evolution so this side of Wooden Shjips comes just as welcome as their clear-cut, Earth-mover gyrations. Interested to see if the full album submerges itself in the same cool waters, but for now this one is hitting very hard.

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