Spectreview: WEEED – You Are The Sky

-DARK ORANGE-

“Give yourself a little room to validate”

WEEED take a monastic approach to psych rock, stretching songs out until they resemble mantras and building their parts of naturalistic imagery and tight, practiced playing. You Are The Sky, their latest album, is a winding river to This’s gusts of wind; it’s light and free, steadily changing currents and force across its runtime. Aptly-named “Opening” slides under your door rather than forcing it open, allowing the album’s suite of steady jams, all anchored in the key of D, to seep into your subconscious at an unhurried pace. That quality is occasionally a double-edged sword here, as the complexities of the compositions are slightly undercut by a lack of urgency even in the album’s more breakneck moments. That shouldn’t discount the strength of these tracks though; the band is able to keep focus on a specific mood while varying tempo, dynamic and meter throughout its 45 minutes. The album hits a resonant climax in its closing pair of 10-minute epics: “Caramelized” speeds the river up to rapids, careening around rocks and eddies while echoing the album’s musical themes, while the title track brings you to the top of the mountain, revealing a slow, glistening sunset before throwing you down the slope one last time.

Recommended for both cardio and yoga.