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Review: 'WHITE HILLS'
'Walks For Motorists'   

-  Label: 'Thrill Jockey'
-  Genre: 'Rock' -  Release Date: '6th April 2015'

Our Rating:
NYC psych-rockers and pseudo-Krautockers made the improbable decision to relocate to Wales to record this, the latest in a long line of releases.

The album title is taken from a guidebook for the Snowdonia area where a small studio gave them the luxury of 24 hour access.

White Hills is an ever changing entity and here they comprise the core personnel of male-female duo Dave W and Ego Sensation. Production duties were handed over to David Wrench who they admired for his work with Bear In Heaven. The maverick Welshman has also recorded with FKA Twigs and Caribou as well as being part of Julian Cope's flock of Black Sheep.

The other big change in the White Hills methodology is in the fact that none of the tracks were written on the guitar. Instead, the stripped-down songs are built around keyboard melodies, dubby bass lines and a drum machine.

£SD or USB; I, Nomad and Automated City effectively manage to forge motorik beats out of these ingredients.

Guitars, mostly heavy-footed on the wah-wah pedal, are by no means absent however and were added to other tracks.

While these shifts signify something of a departure from previous releases, fans can be reassured that the band's trademark elements of fuzzy riffs and doomladen vocals are intact. This means that there is still plenty of deep fried space-rock in the Hawkwind tradition.

The surging No Will opens proceedings with a blazing riff but it is the squally intensity of the nine minute Lead The Way which represents the album's centrepiece. This majestic beast has soaring guitars and cosmic moans above an earthy bass line.

The loose grooves and voice samples on Walks For Motorists, the title track, make a dance-friendly closer.

While the record exists well outside the mainstream, in a parallel universe the relative accessibility of this and other shorter tracks could even be chart contenders.

Don't imagine that the New Yorkers have gone soft though. They may have developed a temporary taste for trekking in the scenic Welsh hills but walkers should beware of any motorists where this album is blasting out from the car stereo.

White Hills at Tumblr
  author: Martin Raybould

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WHITE HILLS - Walks For Motorists