Freeks - Shattered

  by Adrian Janes

published: 26 / 11 / 2016

Label: Heavy Psych Sounds
Format: CD

intro

Third album from California’s Freeks for the most part proves disappointingly unfreakish

With such a combination of band name, album title and label, my hopes were high that ‘Shattered’ would be something really stupendous. Unfortunately, much of it turns out to be rather orthodox rock of a late 60s/early 70s vintage (e.g. ‘Space Bar’, ‘Blue Shoes’), granted that it’s played with plenty of spirit. Few of the songs have much in the way of a distinctive tune, something not helped by vocalist Ruben Romano’s tendency to painfully yell lyrics in a way that makes you want to ply him or yourself with Lemsip. The playing does have plenty of energy, for example ‘Strange Mind’, which comes over like an especially raucous Blue Öyster Cult, and when the band stretch out on instrumental breaks - notably on ‘Sylvia’ - they do at times transcend what is basically amped up rock and roll and make something that is more truly both heavy and psychedelic. Jonathan Hall is an adept if not terribly original hard rock guitarist, Esteban Chavez’s keyboards supply some good textural touches, and Bob Lee’s drums drive things along. It is bassist Tom Davies who is, however, consistently inventive (notably helping to make ‘Fast Forward’ one of the best tracks), his playing supple yet always laying a solid foundation. In a way ‘Shattered’ functions as a potted history of how one strand of psychedelia morphed into heavy metal: ’La Tumba’, another of the better tracks, has a riff and distorted vocals that sounds like the product of a jam between the Stooges and Black Sabbath. Perhaps it can serve as a signpost to the rather more creative originals who in their time were feeling their way towards something new, but other than its engaging energy it really offers little that hasn’t been done before, and better.

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