Album Review: Worshipper, One Way Trip
Posted in Reviews on July 29th, 2024 by JJ Koczan
Worshipper don’t make you wait long for the title-line of their third album, One Way Trip. Amid the heavy swing and confident melodicism of opening cut “Heroic Dose,” guitarist/vocalist John Brookhouse (also keys) croons in the bridge, “I hope this trip isn’t a one-way,” and while there may or may not be lysergic implications in that lyric, the speaker in the song seems to be talking even more about life and death. That impression sets some higher stakes for the Boston four-piece’s first full-length in a half decade, and the follow-up to 2019’s duly luminescent Light in the Wire (review here) finds them accordingly dwelling in a darker mood. The nine-track/41-minute offering is also their label debut for Magnetic Eye Records, to which the band signed earlier this year, and whatever angle one might want to view (hear) it from, there’s no getting around it as a to-date pinnacle of their craft.
It’s true the overall vibe has become more terrestrial since Light in the Wire, which the band followed with the 2020 singles “Lonesome Boredom Overdrive” (posted here) and “Slipping Away” and the 2021 Live at Sum Studios, but whether it’s the hook of “Heroic Dose” or the storytelling that seems to tie together subsequent pieces “Keep This,” “Windowpane” and “Only Alive,” and so on across one and then the other of One Way Trip‘s two sides, Brookhouse, guitarist/synthesist Alejandro Necochea, bassist Bob Maloney and drummer Dave Jarvis outdo themselves readily in terms of songwriting, building a momentum in that initial salvo that carries them through the shove of “Acid Burns,” the lumbering nod of “James Motel,” the Thin Lizzyan dual-solo shenanigans in “The Spell” and the concluding “Onward,” which offers a pointed contrast in terms of expanse without losing the steady grip on structure that allows so much of the proceedings on One Way Trip to imprint themselves on the listener’s frontal cortex. Indeed, the repetitions of “Oh god, is this all that there is?” in the build across the last third of the finale — 1:16 outro “Flashback” follows directly, deconstructing the riff to an echoing roll before a sweep of synth noise rises and recedes — serve to underscore both the moodier feel of One Way Trip and their ability to make their songs do more than one thing without giving up either the overarching flow of the entirety or the quality of their work.
That the songwriting would be tighter isn’t necessarily unexpected from Worshipper, whose influences have always leaned into classic-style heavy and dynamic, but the balance the band strike between that and the atmospherics surrounding that make One Way Trip both hooky-feeling and immersive. To wit, “James Motel” bases its verse around a relatively straightforward roller riff with a more chugging pre-chorus rendered smooth in its transitions by Jarvis‘ drums and the layered vocals from Brookhouse in the chorus that follows.
It’s nothing overly challenging when you write it out on paper, but the band — as well as Alec Rodriguez at New Alliance East, who recorded and mixed (Pat DiCenso at Q Division mastered) — bring depth and character atop the basic structure in a way that feels more their own than it ever has, and they weren’t exactly wanting for individuality on previous releases. It’s not about overblown, demonstrative arrogance on the part of the players, but about how in about four or five minutes, each cut on One Way Trip becomes a mini-trip in itself. My understanding is there’s source material for the narrative, whether it’s the 1990 film Jacob’s Ladder or personal experience, but there’s a fluidity to what Worshipper are conveying that’s set next to — not against — the impression each track feels like it’s taking due time to make.
Perhaps all of this is to say that if you’re looking for a progressive aspect to what the band are doing, or if you’re trying to understand how the band have grown in the last five years and the direction they’ve taken this time around, it’s right there in front of you while you listen. They’re stylized, to be sure, but whether it’s the gallop of “The Spell” veering into layered-guitar ambience and pulls before the actual solo starts right around three minutes in, or the consuming, almost ’80s-Sabbath-ish downerism that “Windowpane” casts, purpose and impact maintained amid a palpable brooding in its chorus, the wordplay on ‘pain’ not to be discounted. By the time they get around to the acoustic/electric blend (or at least something that sounds like one; that could be an electric with some effect or other; it’s two distinct tones between Brookhouse and Necochea either way) in the second half of “Onward,” and make ready to ask the already-noted final question, “Oh god is this all that there is?,” the “all there is” in terms of the record itself has turned out to be plenty.
Ultimately, that’s the emergent story of One Way Trip itself. The lyrical narrative — less ‘concept record’ in terms of a character waking up in the first track and a plotline unfolding, but thematic slices of life just the same — is its own thing, but the real message being conveyed by One Way Trip is how surefooted Worshipper have become in their approach and how the solid ground beneath them has allowed them to build out this material in exciting ways, engaging in three dimensions, and refining their take in ways that emphasize just how much they’ve come into their own through the songs rather than in spite of them.
I won’t discount the swagger that’s part of making “Acid Burns” such an effective transition between the first and second halves of the record, or the flash in some of their soloing, but there’s little actual-ego to be discerned from this material, and the album as a whole is a stronger statement for that. In some respects, it is what Worshipper have been building toward over the last nine years — a continued manifestation of the potential shown in their earliest work — but more than that, One Way Trip highlights just how much Worshipper, by encompassing elements of rock and metal in various classic ideals and interpretations, have established their identity as being unto itself.
