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Wooden Shjips : West

Thrill Jockey

Ready to boogie but not so keen on endless funk or featherweight fauxtronica? Down for some gnarly guitar action that eschews note-heavy shredheadiness in favor of groove-drenching color slabs that pulsate like a vintage analog light show? If so, the acquisition of Wooden Shjips’ West probably wouldn’t be the worst idea in the world. Best of all, the half-decade-old San Francisco quartet reach the stratosphere with such ease that there’s no need to wind up into it (nearly all of the album’s seven songs begin in full flight) or distract with but-we’re-really-about-the-songs vocal mixing. While guitarist Ripley Johnson’s buried melodies are just as extractable as ever, his lyrics have never been more inscrutable in the fuzzy haze, appearing like misheard shards of wisdom from a far-off band playing in the foggy distance at a mythical art happening in an imaginary bohemia. The precise and disorienting pulsewave of “Lazy Bones” resembles “Whipping Post” rewritten by commune-dwelling kraut-rockers. The Shjips’ fifth full-length release in five years (plus Johnson’s pair with Moon Duo), West maintains the band’s status as an essential cosmonautical navigators, and points to new territories besides.