Wildildlife- Six
(Crucial Blast Records BR 064)
From Aural Innovations #39 (May 2008)
The debut from San Francisco’s Wildildlife is one monster kickass psych freakout of an album! Six certainly runs the gamut, through all the modern psychedelic/metal/stoner tropes, but pulls them off in a fresh and original ways. It can definitely be raw and lo fi at times, to be sure, but that’s part of its charm.
Here’s what you’re going to hear. The pounding drum rhythm that opens the album eventually explodes into the insanely catchy, big anthemic riffing of Things Will Grow. Following that is Tungsten Steel/Epilogue, certainly one oddball (in a good way!) track. It starts with a repetitive almost Krautrockian groove before dissolving into some noisy space sludge and then, the epilogue, a very bizarre throbbing drum with strange psychedelic voices that detonates into a storm of plodding metallic noise and gothic weirdness to finish. Whooping Church is a brief bit of strange ambience that sounds like it could be some kind of ancient recording of alien birds with Brian Eno playing in the background! Next up is the sprawling Magic Jordan. At over 18-minutes in length it runs through slow burn acid blues to heavy metal howling but the last 10 minutes of the song lapse into a beautiful ambient, lazily rhythmic, swirling psychedelic stew with bells and choir-like voices and spacey sounds galore. Tasty stuff! Feed is definitely some intense, swirling psych, a kind of minimalist metal odyssey with pointed, ringing melodies. Kross on the other hand lays down 14 minutes of deep stoner riffing with howling at the moon vocals. Nervous Buzzing closes the album, and is another 14-minute piece, which starts with, oddly enough a minimalist buzzing. Moaning vocals and deep noise drones take over before a primal rhythm kicks in taking it slowly into a deep and gloriously spacey sonic soup of drones and shimmering noise that drifts languidly and easily into a beautiful stellar symphony. What an ending!
On Six, Wildildlife find a perfect balance between screaming intensity and
aching beauty. It’s modern sounding, but with just a touch of 70’s
retro, and a general freaked out attitude that wins. Recommended!
You can visit the band web site at:
http://www.myspace.com/wildildlife
Visit the record label web site at: http://www.crucialblast.net
Reviewed by Jeff Fitzgerald