If the end-all-be-all point of psychedelic music is transcendence, Psychic Ills have taken a whack at just about every path that shows any promise of getting there. The Brooklyn trio has done space-rock freak-outs, heavy minimalist drones, and abstract synthesizer mulch, all of which has been unspooled across two LPs, a handful of small-press singles, a compilation album, and, probably, a box full of all-night free-form practice tapes.
The Ills' third LP, Hazed Dream, finds them taking another approach, sidelining the guitar solos in favor of stripped-down and straightforward songwriting. In his lightly blazed tenor, Tres Warren-- the band's guitarist, singer, and principle songwriter-- coolly considers the subjects that have long fascinated and vexed his space-rock forebears: sunshine, roads, walking down roads, walking with Jesus, and things that are and aren't all right. The pace is whispery and mellow, the fuzz pedal presumably out of batteries. It's pure moods music for cowboy stoners. There's nothing here that's going to explode any eyeballs or melt the paint off the wall, but it's a step in the right direction for Psychic Ills, whose output has been fairly inconsistent since their 2006 debut, Dins.
During the mid 2000s, it sometimes felt like Psychic Ills were a band in the right place at the right time with the wrong music. Their contemporaries and labelmates, like Gang Gang Dance and Black Dice, ditched guitars for samplers and new-age synthesizer tones, pursuing spacey music's more under-explored permutations and, eventually, finding modest popularity. For all their stylistic restlessness, Psychic Ills were traditionalists, sticking to established, well-worn 1960s psych and krautrock sounds.
Hazed Dream is a record that fits more precisely into its time and place. With their mumbled verses and slacker spirituality, Warren's compositions aren't terribly distant from Kurt Vile's effect pedal-enhanced folk-rock, albeit lacking in some of the Philly-based rocker's gift for conjuring pastoral sprawl. In the subdued soloing, you can hear echoes of San Francisco retro noodlers Wooden Shjips. Psychic Ills hung on to their schtick long enough that they seem to have phased back into tune with their peers.
But transcendence via free-form freak-out is further away than ever. Hazed Dream has some heady moments-- the languid guitar intro to "Incense Head" and the head-nodding chords of "Mexican Wedding"-- but the songs are just too mellow, understated, and lyrically anonymous to move the needle much.
