The Freeks, Shattered: Pieces Put Together (Plus Full Album Stream)
Posted in audiObelisk, Reviews on November 7th, 2016 by JJ Koczan
[Click play above to stream The Freeks’ Shattered in its entirety. Album is out Friday, Nov. 11 via Heavy Psych Sounds.]
The Freeks‘ third album, Shattered, reads like a blueprint for how to blend punker and psychedelic impulses. Or at least how to revel in the competition between them. Also the Los Angeles five-piece’s debut on Heavy Psych Sounds, it expands on the ideas of 2013’s Full On (review here) as well as the runtime — going from 34 then to 48 minutes here — and leans on the fantastic and classy key work of Esteban Chavez to carry a vintage vibe into songs like the ultra-Stoogesian “Where Did You Go,” the band trying to find that moment when heavy rock got just dirty enough to be called punk for the first time while still keeping a modern production.
This drive has been there since their 2008 self-titled debut, but finds its deepest manifestation yet on Shattered, and while one doubts the title is a reference the group’s penchant for jumping styles, there are songs that present a solid break from one genre to the next, perhaps best exemplified in the turn from the speedy rawness of “Uncle Jack’s Truck” (“Uncle Jack” also made an appearance on the self-titled) to the more sprawling, jammy, lysergic “Sylvia” at what one assumes is the end of side A. Granted, some of these moves come across pretty clearly telegraphed — particularly when one can look at the comparative track lengths — but The Freeks are an experienced band and know how to set up a flow so that “Strange Mind” can make one recall that vocalist/guitarist Ruben Romano‘s pedigree goes back to Nebula‘s days as a Fu Manchu offshoot.
Bassist/vocalist Tom Davies also did time in the much-missed heavy psych rockers, and together with him, guitarist/vocalist Jonathan Hall (Backbiter), Chavez on synth, organ and electric piano, and drummer Bob Lee, who makes his debut here in place of Hari Hassin, Romano leads the fervent charge that The Freeks ignite early with feedback and piano intensity on opener “Tiny Pieces.” The hook in that track revolves around the line, “No one’s gonna take me alive,” and that proves telling as regards the attitude of Shattered, which like its predecessor reminds at its meanest moments, as with the late-arriving and particularly blown-out “Ivana,” of Mondo Generator, but three records deep, The Freeks are less willing to be defined by their influences than by their songwriting.
They have more than enough stylistic command to establish fluidity to carry them through the swinging “Where Did You Go” and into the emergent swirl of “Strange Mind” — the first of Shattered‘s several really psychedelic tracks, joined later by “Sylvia” and much of side B, and maybe still the catchiest, though I’m partial to the gone-and-not-coming-back, dream-state sensibility of closer “Blow Time Away” — and while there are times listening to the effects churn later in “Sylvia” or “Strange Mind” or “Fast Forward” or indeed “Blow Time Away” when one has to step back and wonder how it is The Freeks can resist the impulse to just make a record of half-hour-long jams, since they so clearly could and probably put out three full-lengths a year of space rock mastery, the fact that they don’t makes them a more powerful group in terms of craft and gives their sound a dimension that even deep-field mixing can’t necessarily convey.
Though it certainly doesn’t hurt. Pulling out of the atmosphere of earlier cuts like the post-grunge strum of “I’m a Mess” and the fittingly motor-ready thrust of “Uncle Jack’s Truck,” the consciously-titled “There’s No Turning back Now” is only 1:48, but it serves as a trippy synth/effects introduction to Shattered‘s second half from which “La Tumba” directly feeds and expands, more patient in pace and rolling out to engaging heavy psych liquefaction. It’s not that structure disappears entirely, but the stylistic lean definitely changes its direction, and an experimental edge even works its way into the hard cosmic surf of “The Space Bar,” broadening The Freeks‘ established reach leading into the fade-in of “Fast Forward”‘s languid grandeur. Once again, there’s an underlying hook — “Just keep moving forward” feels a long way removed from “No one’s gonna take me alive,” even if the root message is similar — but it comes paired with Shattered‘s most hypnotic groove, and the pairing of guitar solo and organ at the end make it a high point of the album as a whole.
Naturally, the smash-into-ground of “Ivana” follows. I said the band telegraphed some of their moves, and they do, but it still works in terms of the aforementioned revelry, and as stark as “Fast Forward” into “Ivana” is, “Ivana” into the penultimate “Blue Shoes” — more of a middle-ground strut-rocker complementing “Where Did You Go” earlier — sets up the shift back into the ethereal for “Blow Time Away” to close out, and those final three songs summarize well the scope presented across the entire span, essentially a condensed version of what brings Shattered so smoothly together. “Blow Time Away” ends cold, with just a quick shot of feedback mirroring “Tiny Pieces,” and The Freeks make their way out of their sprawling-but-still-driven third offering with a resounding lack of pretense intact despite having married styles rarely bridged. There’s no doubt they benefit from the past experience of their component members, but as The Freeks hit maturity on their own as a band, their personality has only become more multi-faceted.
