reviews / 2013

PSYCHIC ILLS - One Track Mind

Name: PSYCHIC ILLS – One Track Mind
Item: One Track Mind
Rating: 5
Author: Francesco Nunziata

2013 (Sacred Bones)

neo-psychedelia

by Francesco Nunziata

Caught up in a shadowy, lethargic psychedelia, their last album was truly disappointing.

“One Track Mind”, on the other hand, from the breezy alt-country opening of “One More Time” already seems to bring a little light back into the Psychic Ills universe, even if the shadows haven't fully laid down their arms. Light that endures, dressed in garage-rock textures, on “See You There” and “Might Take A While”, ever clearer signs of a decisive turn toward more rock-oriented territory (in this, probably aided too by the production of Neil Michael Hagerty), in which, however, the band ends up losing its identity, settling into perfectly ordinary values, with the usual regulation hard-psych mirages (“Depot”), languid (read: self-satisfied) psych-western excursions (“Tried To Find It”), and sixties-style chiming that's nice but not quite enough (“I Get By”).

The only link to the past is represented, in part, by the detached, shadowy tone of Tres Warren's voice, almost suspended in a psychic limbo during the clumsy attempt of “FBI” to shoulder even raga (“FBI”).

All too neat and predictable, in short. So much so that the light mentioned at the start, in the acoustic coda of “City Sun”, shows, with no disguise at all, its true face: that of a mirage, of a pure and simple illusion.

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07/02/2013

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This article is an English translation of the original Italian text by Francesco Nunziata, published on OndaRock.it. It was translated with the help of artificial intelligence, under the editorial responsibility of OndaRock's editor-in-chief, Claudio Fabretti.

Read the original in Italian · About the English edition