The Los Angeles-based singer and guitarist Imaad Wasif has knocked around in a number of bands, including Lowercase, Alaska!, and the New Folk Implosion. He released an introverted solo album in 2006, but for the most part, he's seemed like the perennial utility player looking for a way to present himself as a frontman. After a profile-boosting stint as Yeah Yeah Yeahs' touring guitarist for Show Your Bones, Wasif is taking another stab at putting his name on an album's cover instead of inside its credits. With bassist/keyboardist Bobb Bruno and drummer Adam Garcia, he's crafted a hybrid of glutinous stoner rock, darkly-hazed psychedelia, and slogging proto-metal, like Crazy Horse by way of Black Sabbath.
It's difficult to reconcile Wasif the songwriter with Wasif the Yeah Yeah Yeahs guitarist, as his playing style on Strange Hexes is deliberate and obtuse-angled, a sharp contrast to YYY's acute rave-ups. This implies that Wasif is a versatile guitarist, and certainly a talented one. Unfortunately, that versatility doesn't show through on this profoundly homogeneous album, and Wasif's talent is unduly circumscribed. Wasif and Two Part Beast know how to push a languid rock tune toward a chugging, barn-burning crescendo ("Wanderlust"), and they can seamlessly blend fuzzed-out arpeggios into tar-footed chords into gossamer webs of riffage ("Unveiling" and "The Oracle"). And they do, over and over. What they apparently can't or don't care to do is diversify, and despite its technical facility, Strange Hexes quickly becomes an exercise in tedium.
Wasif is a game singer, with a tuneful and somehow vague voice, but he doesn't marshal much force, preferring to drift inconspicuously amid the carefully interlaced guitar phrases. The lyrics mostly stay out of the way, although occasionally, an eyebrow-raisingly ponderous phrase slips through (such as "I am a chrysalis/ I am apocalypse," on the inevitable crunchy climax of "Seventh Sign"). But for the most part, there's nothing dislikable about this album; it just seems uninspired: rock by rote. Its admirable qualities, such as Garcia's consistently muscular and fine percussion, don't cohere into songs that distinguish themselves from the relentless midtempo grind. Maybe a three or four part beast would've given it the extra heft it needs. As it stands, its slow-burns tend more toward wet-fuses, which will still spark if you wait around long enough. If you're willing to do so, you've far more patience (or weed) than I.
