Hills - Frid
Psychedelic Swedes lay down some mind-blowing pagan ritual music
by Guy OddyTuesday, 25 August 2015
Frid: primal psychedelia
In a way that is reminiscent of fellow Swedes and label mates Goat, Hills play a primal psychedelia that draws from a far broader spectrum of sounds than the usual garage rock and motorik grooves of their British and American fellow travellers. On Frid, their third album, vocals are largely put aside in favour of spaced-out instrumentals or chanting that suggests medieval plainsong fed into an effects box. While the guitar sounds and grooves of Tinariwen and Songhoy Blues rub up against the chemical drone of Spacemen 3 to make some serious pagan ritual music that both moves hips and flips wigs.
“Kollektiv” eases the listener into Hills’ world with an industrial drone that gives way to spacey guitars and a sluggish groove which spins off into eddies of woozy sound and Eastern instrumentation before blowing up into “National Drone”, which comes on like Ravi Shankar jamming with Spacemen 3...
Read the rest of the review here: The Arts Desk
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