WHITE HILLS

The recent psychedelic rock revival has produced some great bands over the last few years, with the likes of San Francisco's Wooden Shjips, the Texas-based The Black Angels and Canada's Black Mountain leading the way with a spate of excellent - and truly cosmic - albums. Also hailing from the states, New York's White Hills have been buzzing around the new psych scene for few years now, though unlike the previously-mentioned trio, they have failed to generate as much excitement. One listen to this self-titled album and the reasons for White Hills failure to move out of the underground becomes abundantly clear; their sound is rough and raw, more akin to heavy metal than psychedelic rock, and they show almost complete dis-regard for the original psychedelic sounds of yesteryear. A thoroughly modern and un- commercial release, 'White Hills' ploughs crudely through a series of glutinous, guitar-bass-and-drums dominated tracks that are barely indistinguishable from one another, with a white noise backdrop that smothers every single decibel. The spoken, or sometimes screeched, vocals add little to the mix(apart from irritate), and the actual playing is pretty basic, with the group displaying precious little instrumental verve. Fans of blandly-constructed psych-tinged metal may prefer this to the more esoteric works of Wooden Shjips or The Black Angels, but in truth there is very little here for prog-rock fans to chew on. In a word: Dull. STEFAN TURNER, LONDON, 2010

This album appears with alternative LP and CD versions, which means sleeve and even the tracks are differing. So the first advantage is that the digital format is not reduced to around 40 minutes in total. Dave W. (guitar) founded the band in New York. Hence WHITE HILLS are from USA but have the focus on Europe in some way. Nearly all albums have been released on UK labels and they apparently prefer touring this region when it comes to live performances.

The use of an eponymous album title after such a bunch of prior recordings points to something like a new beginning, a rebirth they obviously bear in mind. The tracks were recorded over the course of three days in the summer of 2009. Longtime mate Ego Sensation adds a deep-toned bass all over, drummer Kid Millions partially plays agile and virtuoso in opposite to several other genre bands.

The pushing heavy psych/stoner branded Dead features repetitive guitar drones where Counting Sevens could be considered as a tricky space rock track, just to mention the cosmic guitar work coupled with oscillator waves, a bass showing a doom appeal and Kid Millions' special easy-going drumming. Now I'm really sure they have Let the Right One In - a hypnotic free flowing style is appealing here in any case, even when the band hurries up a little during the last minutes.

The next songs continue the cosmic explorations where Glacial seems to be a derivation from synthesizer experiments. Back to the heavy side of life the closing Polvere Di Stelle is something repetitive looping like no other. Well placed trippy and drowsy vocals, sawing guitar walls ... WHITE HILLS have provided an interesting, surely emotive space rock album spiked with some post rock drones, sometimes blatantly heavy, sometimes spacey floating - 3.5 stars.