Hills – Frid
After the fourth listen of ‘Frid’, I found myself mentally extracting the drone from each of these tracks and most of the time the songs sounded as if they would still work. The exquisite guitar playing and eclectic instrumentation (I especially love the addition of the flute on ‘Milarepa’) shines through. Repeated listens though do not reveal an inner pop sensibility though. In fact you will be hard pressed to find a conventional hook anywhere on this record. Even ‘Death Will Find a Way’, which adds a vocal melody to its trippy arsenal, is downbeat and dirgy. Hills are not a band you hum to yourself in the shower. That’s for sure.
With the drone in place though, this album rolls along like a thunder storm. It’s trippy certainly, but it’s a dark and threatening trip that doesn’t let up until the record has finished. They even have a song here called ‘National Drone’ as if they have mastered it and claimed the word as their own.
Hills are the band I want Acid Mothers Temple to be when I listen to them. I like this a lot; it’s exciting. They appear focused on a goal and are sticking with it and no matter how bummed out you may be after the album’s 38 minute length you will want to take the trip again.
See the review here: Penny Black
---
