Wooden Shjips – “Wooden Shjips ” – [Holy Mountain]

Daryl Licht   10/26/2007   12-inch, A Library

After a couple of limited 7???s and one 10??? EP comes the highly anticipated the debut full-length release from the Bay Area???s Wooden Shjips. It contains five tracks of excellent psych jamming. The rhythm section of Dusty Jermier (bass) and Omar Ahsanuddin (drums) lays down steady, stone grooves which provide the foundation for layers of Nash Whalen???s droning, pulsating keyboards and Erik “Ripley” Johnson???s fuzz/wah/echoplexed guitar freakouts. The tracks on this release seem to build in intensity as the album progresses, with the final two cuts ???Blue Sky Bends??? and ???Shine Like Suns??? being the highlights of this disc. A solid debut that???s sure to be a crowd pleaser. I look forward with great anticipation to hearing the Wooden Shjips fulfill their full potential with even more peaked performances in the future. DL