As astral planes go, that of the Warlocks takes after Howard Hughes' Spruce Goose: it's part visionary, but mostly indulgent. The Los Angeles band has been flying high on the opalescent tailwinds of the Velvet Underground and Spiritualized for nearly a decade. Once an octet more prone to '60s-tinged garage pop, the group pared down its members (to a quartet) but not its sound. With Heavy Deavy Skull Lover, the Warlocks drop only eight songs in almost an hour. In that span, the group's fourth full-length offers unadulterated dousings of sublimated guitar and flights through psychedelic airspace and headspace.
The band has roots firmly planted in Pink Floyd and Hawkwind, and exchanges butterfly kisses with Radiohead and Angelo Badalamenti. Heavy, prismatic drones empower the junkie seduction of the Warlocks' slurry beat, as heard on tracks "So Paranoid," "Slip Beneath," and "Zombie Like Lovers." On this disc, each chord reverberates and lingers, hovering in a hypersaturated noir atmosphere. Heavy Deavy Skull Lover is bacterial and ethereal; it's a feverish hive of the unmoored murk that always crusted the Warlocks' primal stomp, now given center stage for an album of acid-casualty introversion.
