The second full-length onslaught from these Croatian purveyors of the heavy cosmic psych, Summon the Waves (Setalight Records) finds the four-piece Stonebride coloring outside the lines in Hubble shades while nodding at the head-caked riff crowd with amped crunch and minor-key melodicism. The psych here is dark (that whole minor-key thing) and moody, but never whiny or miserable. Rather, Stonebride play layers of guitar off each other in extended passages and occasionally go into hyper-hypnotism with sometimes too-brief moments of repetition. Head. Trip. Rock.

All seems straightforward and riffy from the intro “The Phoenix,” but “Shadows Like Snakes” makes short work of that impression, constantly shaping and reshaping itself over its nine and a half minute runtime. Though the track begins heavy, the self-harmonizing vocals of Krnfa add complexity to the songcraft, doing call and response à la Dirt-era Alice in Chains for a chorus of “In the arms of God/There is no shame/In the Arms of God/We’re all the same,” while Tjemisir’s guitars chug out underneath. At about the 4:30 mark, the song opens up for an extended instrumental jam that not only shows of Tjemisir’s solo acumen, but some impressive tom work from drummer Thee Steps and well-timed distortion from relatively banally-named bassist Lenny.

So then you’ve got it all figured out again, and you think Stonebride’s Summon the Waves is just going to be another one of those meandering heavy psych records – a little more weighty than Colour Haze or any of their growing legion of imitators, but making plenty of the same moves structurally – and there comes “Crimson Tongue” and “Mute Heart Rivers,” two six-plus minute offerings that up the melody and heavy/ambient interchange. “Crimson Tongue” has some megaphone vocals from Krnfa in the verse but changes to a whispery, softer approach for the chorus, where Thee Steps’ hi-hat is almost a little too busy hitting sixteenths. But soon the music changes again, the guitars pick up and you’re grooving on one of those High on Fire moments where the chaos has given way to the power of the riff. It’s a suitable lead-in for the Melvins-style drum opening of “Mute Heart Rivers,” which retains its percussive edge throughout, affecting a slow build that culminates, appropriately, shortly before the song ends.

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