The darker side of the Haight Ashbury hippy experience is (once again) evoked by San Francisco quartet Wooden Shjips, whose third album could have been titled ‘if it ain’t broke, crank up the distortion’.
Tonally, we’re taking the way back machine to 1967, when acid-stoked guitars and meandering song structures spoke to a musician’s determination to break down boundaries. Half a century on those sort of fuzzy ulutations have the whiff of a museum piece which may explain why, for stretches, Back To Land sounds as if it belongs not on your hard-dive or stereo but behind a glass case in an exhibition hall. While some acoustic tinkering attests to Wooden Shjips’ desire to move things forward, so enamoured are they with the sixties their attempts to shake up the formula come off as half-hearted. They have both feet in the past and are enjoying the view just fine.

Key Track: 'Back to Yesterday'