White Canyon & The 5th Dimension

Hailing from São Tomé das Letras in Brazil, this duo have released one of the most accomplished psych debuts I’ve heard in a long time. Yes, we’ve heard similar before but you have to straddle a wide range of psych to spot all the influences. We have Lo-fi garage rock with more than a nod to the VU and 13th Floor Elevators alongside tracks that owe more to the recent desert rock styling of bands such as The Myrrors. That said, they always make it their own with a coherent blend of garage, shoegaze, space and all-out psych rock. It has the riffs, the Drone, and the heavily reverbed guitar licks.
There is a certain sense of laid-back melancholy in some of the tracks but it’s an album that isn’t afraid to full out rock and reach for the sky amongst all that. Regardless of your psych preference, this album has something for everyone (except fans of laid-back electronica maybe). It’s one of those albums that you discover extra layers the more you listen to it; and for a debut, that’s quite some achievement. Simply superb! If you haven’t already, check it out.

Peter Baird