Wooden Shjips - V

The Guardian 80

(Thrill Jockey)

This time last year, Wooden Shjips were working on a “summer record”, but external events impinged on the creative process. There was America’s climate of socio-political upheaval; then forest fires raged near where the band recorded, in singer-guitarist Ripley Johnson’s Portland home studio. “I sat watching ash fall like snow,” he remembers. “It felt apocalyptic.” Thus, V, their fifth album, which is rich in summer beauty but has an indefinable undercurrent of fear and menace. The “peace” sign on the cover reflects the band’s desire for a statement of dignified resistance and calm amid the storm.

The sound unfolds slowly and gracefully, like an opening flower. There are psychedelic drones, metronomic, krautrock drums and counter-melodies on horns. The 1967 summer of love has coloured many a psychedelic sound but the most audible influences here come from the great late-80 s British bands Loop and Spacemen 3. Certainly the latter’s smouldering masterpiece, Playing With Fire, audibly impacts the gently fizzing, eight-minute Staring at the Sun, wherein Johnson describes walking past crowds of people, and dreamily thinking: “What a feeling it is to rise above.” Similar sentiments of escape fire Golden Flower, but there is no aimless meandering. Everything is underpinned by solid songwriting and pop hooks, never more so than in the twangy Already Gone, while the keyboard/bass-surging Ride On is grandly epic. Throughout, Johnson’s guitar wanders delicately across the sound with spectral beauty. It’s an album of hazy intensity, perfect for these times and this summer.

Drowned In Sound 70

V. unsurprisingly stands for the band’s fifth full-length record with its artwork representing peace in a time of chaos. Recorded in the summer of 2017, the band say they intended to write a 'blissed-out summery-feeling record', which they largely succeed at; this is perhaps the most 'pleasant' release of their back catalogue, however the political and physical landscape of America at the time “kept intruding on my headspace” as Johnson explains.

V. by Wooden Shjips

Aside from the obvious anxiety regarding the White House right now, V. was also written and recorded in the backdrop of the Pacific Northwest wild-fires that ravaged the region last summer, something Johnson directly addresses in lead-single ‘Staring at the Sun’. Musically that song is out of the most chilled out moments of the album, sonically reminiscent of the Lou Reed’s ‘Take A Walk on The Wild Side’, as if the narrator is embracing getting washed up in the chaos and destruction surrounding him.

Elsewhere, the album never lets up the atmosphere it creates; making it a perfect sunny-evening driving record. Opener ‘Eclipse’ is about as hard-and-fast as it gets, but aside from the traditional band set-up, it is the embellishments of brass instruments that really lift the track into good stead for the rest of the record. Recent single ‘Red Line’ is perhaps the poppiest track Wooden Shjips have created to date, bordering into early-Deerhunter territory. Meanwhile closer ‘Ride On’ finishes things off with an almost Spiritualised-esque ballad, bringing all the chaos down into a simple, restrained, final capsule.

Wooden Shjips’ fifth record, like pretty much all their records, is a pleasant, fun listen, perfect for the summer right around the corner as intended. There is a nagging sense with this attempt that they are leaning on their influences even more than usual, however this is also stands as their best-produced and most accessible record, so there is a balance struck. Whether those outside of the proggy, psychedelic set will acknowledge that, remains to be seen.