Grungy amplifier worshipping space/psychedelic rock with pulsing bass, trance-inducing ritualistic repetitive riffs and rhythms, and heaps of distortion. Key players in Leeds’ hardcore punk and noise rock scene join heads once more for a killer psychedelic rock LP. “Strange Worship” gives plenty of reverence to neo-psychedelic and space rock revivalist groups, particularly Spacemen 3 and Loop, while proto-punk, shoegaze, krautrock, and drone rock sounds are well represented too.
Forged by members of Boom-dwelling groups including Tramadol, The Shits, and Lugubrious Children, Self-Immolation Music play psych rock with punk spirit, offering guitars to the front, fuzz-soaked, and feedback-laden riffs delivered with belligerent repetition, minimalist percussion, and distant vocals.
Within just a few seconds, we find out what S-IM are all about, introducing themselves and their mid-1980s referencing psychedelia with each instrumentalist entering at the same time in the beginning of the first bar of opening track ‘Killing Field’. No steadily building crescendo, abstract ambient instrumental, or a series of soft slippery effects-heavy riffs, just driven, chugging, rock and roll with a brilliant, immediately ear-grabbing grubby guitar tone. It all seems calculated and intentional, their opening manifesto if you will, as they unveil a grungy, monochrome shaded form of psychedelia which sits at the opposite end to flower power psych-pop.
As if primed for the punk and DIY indie sect, Self-Immolation Music’s psych rock is shades on, leather clad, and nods to the nihilistic, conjuring Suicide’s fraught synth-punk plus counter culture totems like ‘Easy Rider’ and the fiery proto-punk of Detroit’s MC5. They manage to balance intense and powerful, near-anthemic qualities, best hear in ‘Retloflex’ which glides with churning, headlong riffs, rhythms, and quicker tempos, while ‘Purifying Light’ strides with a glammy swagger, and ‘Wild Nightmares’ delivers head nod prompting groove after groove.
Self-Immolation Music also do low-slung, lethargic, and drugged out psych rock brilliantly too. Offering a break from the unwavering hypnotic spells, tracks in this vein are either darker, dingier, and drowsier, or brighter as they temporarily burst into kaleidoscopic colour. In the former camp, there’s the quality downer droner ‘New Feeling’, but the title track longform melter is a clear album highlight in this mold. Somewhere between a cosmic stoner rock dirge and The Stooges in slo-mo, its bass bristles with distorted growls, the sporadic drum pelts blare with ritualistic menace, and the whirring wah-wah saturated guitars are total brain melters.
In the latter camp, ‘You Make It Real’ is its radiant inverse, shimmering away with sun-dappled beauty. A clear homage to The Velvet Underground (particularly ‘Heroin’) and Velvets disciples The Jesus and Mary Chain, it’s an unfussy but gorgeous number complete with whisker-thin windchimes, whistling drones, steady percussion, and gleaming guitars played with lightly brushed jangles. ‘Footprints In My Dreams’ keeps the fuzz-steeped psych intact, yet the leading guitar riff is bright, melodic, and almost triumphant.
“Strange Worship” is a clear case of a band wearing their influences firmly on their sleeves, but executing it so well that it’s near impossible not to fall for. Laden with addictive guitar licks, sumptuous tones, and hands-off yet flawless production which suits their sound to a tee, Self-Immolation Music are a must-listen for all the psych rock devotees out there.
The Fat Angel Sings 