Altered Zones

After three albums and more than ten EPs and 7"s, San Francisco's hypnotic groove wranglers have handed over the reins to someone else. Not just one, but three outside individuals are responsible for shaping Wooden Shjips' new West LP into a towering behemoth of sound. The surprising part is less who these people are than the fact that the band has finally allowed outside forces to affect the final punch of a Shjips record after years of recording, engineering, mastering, and, in some cases, distributing their records themselves. West is also the first album from the band to be recorded in a proper studio (SF's Lucky Cat Studios, to be precise), and their debut for Chicago's Thrill Jockey.

Not surprisingly, their sound remains essentially rooted in a trusted amalgam of Sabbath's rolling thunder, Loop's hypnotic trance, and Snapper's balance of noise and melody. As for those new hands in the pot, they've chosen wisely. Phil Manley, a founding member of Trans Am whose credits include records for Alps, Arp, and Mi Ami, steps into the producer/engineer chair; mastering duties are handed over to Sonic Boom (of Spacemen 3 fame) and The Lodge's Heba Kadry, who has worked with Thrill Jockey labelmates Eternal Tapestry and Liturgy in the past. The first name doesn't come too far out of left field, as Manley also recorded this year's Mazes, the sophomore LP from Moon Duo, Ripley's other psychedelic project. In the same way that Manley lifted their melodies from the muck, he brushes some of the dust from Wooden Shjips' sound, letting Johnson’s vocals roll over top of the band's sonic whirlpool with a road-weary sigh.

This clarity pulls some of Ripley Johnson's vocals into focus, allowing lyrical themes of the American West and the Manifest Destiny to boil up to the surface while retaining just the right amount of delay-dripping obfuscation. The frontman brings out country grit and gunfighter cool, sounding like a Johnny Cash running on eight cylinders as the grooves roll on and on, as heavy and hot as the roads they are meant to evoke. The band rolled into this one with some of the most powerful, enigmatic, and entrancing songs they've ever laid to tape. With the expanded team, they've shaken the mountain of the Shjips' sound, thickened and polished it to a hard gleam, and set West loose down the Coast.

Wooden Shjips: West

West is out now in Europe, and drops next week in the US on CD and LP from Thrill Jockey