Review Summary: Elder's buddies.
After the unquestionable success of Elder’s
Reflections Of A Floating World, Stickman Records adds Weedpecker’s
III to their catalogue, a majestic ode to the holy leaf, temples in space and third eye divinations.
Elder’s label mates from Poland have seen an interesting development since their last two records, expanding on psychedelic elements and kaleidoscopic vocal harmonies, but preserving the heaviness and live feel of their previous recordings.
In short,
III feels like a jam in your living room, it has that delightful and organic vibe from the moment that things kick off with “Molecule”. Every track is executed meticulously and presented with crystal clear production thanks to the mystic arts of Haldor Grunberg from Satanic Audio, who also recorded their previous release.
After what seemed to be an intense week of recording that surely involved an inhuman diet of pot, the ideas that the band had been slowly concocting for two long years finally came to life. The five tunes that form
III emanate with no haste, the band flavouring every note, every pulse, bewitching themselves with passages that interweave and evolve graciously. The combination of corpulent riffage with moments of absolutely absorbed jamming is nothing new but Woodpecker know how to pull it off without letting go of the tension and painting the path to other-worldly scenery. This, on the other hand, works sometimes against the flow of the album. The moments where the band is spiralling in their own ecstasies occasionally lead to an abrupt and unavoidable fade out, painfully obvious in the case of the otherwise superb second track “Embrace”.
A forgivable affair, because Weedpecker is specially adept in creating deviant and hypnotic beats, vessels used for unfolding the boundless layers of melody that blossom in tracks like “From Mars to Mercury” or highlight “Liquid Sky”, surely the shortest and most accessible track of the album.
There are obvious similarities to Tame Impala, Pond, and even Elder or Pink Floyd, the psychotropic administration works the same for everyone, make no mistake, but brace yourselves, because
III is a more than welcomed addition to the cosmic travel genre.
