WEEED – You Are The Sky

WEEED – You Are The Sky

Halfshell Records – 2019

Prog, Stoner, Experimental

Rated: *****

Every once in a while an album comes along that ticks every box you've got: Intelligent, thought-provoking, entertaining and refreshingly different. Bainbridge Island's WEEED have produced such an album. ‘Opening’... a quiet Gong-ish cosmic murmur, replete with ethereal Shakti Yoni crooning, merging into a trippy guitar noodling pentatonics over an Eastern percussive backbeat. Suddenly, ‘I See You’ bursts through... It's sunshine - feel guitars and weaving bass so reminiscent of 'English Settlement'- era XTC... In fact, XTC's influence permeates the whole You Are The Sky album, with the vocals uncannily similar to Partridge's plaintive howls and the use of cyclic melodies and counterpoints. ‘Where Did You Go’ runs swiftly in, following the same theme but becoming a striding math rock exercise before descending into a percussive Fuzz-wah interlude... ‘Open Door’ throbs with a robotic moog vibe and eases into groovy krautrock, ushering the arrival of ‘Caramelized’ which builds to a Proggy crescendo of heavy bass and psychedelic guitars - again, reminiscent of Gong. Finally... The title track, ‘You Are The Sky’ returns to the cyclic melodies of previous tracks before hitting the gas pedal and rocking out with quirky patterns and booming basslines, then slowing to a crawl before unleashing the furious Heavy Psych finale, even throwing in a nod to Dick Dale's ‘Miserlou’ along the way... As with all Great albums, it leaves you wanting more… Thoughts of the imagined glory of that elusive 'extra track' lingering long after the final notes ring out. This is a marvelous, satisfying and staggering display of just how good it can be when it all comes together... Album of The Year material!

(Written by Reek of STOOM)

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Halfshell Records