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West Image
Metascore
73

Generally favorable reviews - based on 27 Critic Reviews What's this?

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  • Summary: The San Francisco quartet releases another album of psychedelic rock.
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Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 21 out of 27
  2. Negative: 0 out of 27
  1. Sep 23, 2011
    83
    Heavy, lyrically well-tread and packing a mean proto-motorik groove, from start to finish it has an automotive heartbeat with both eyes on the horizon. It is the sound of Wooden Shjips finally bringing it on home.
  2. Aug 12, 2011
    80
    It's the unrelenting power of the two-chord drones, though, that is the real draw here, bass and drums throbbing hard enough to add a real heartbeat to songs that might otherwise seem insubstantial enough to melt away. It's enervating, sunbaked and, for all that, rather thrilling.
  3. Sep 14, 2011
    80
    With West, WS plays post-history psychedelia; it is as necessary -- and freaky -- as anything from the eras that influenced it.
  4. The Wire
    Aug 17, 2011
    70
    There's no point chasing diminishing returns on a four-track, and the buffed-up West is a kick worth revisiting. [Aug 2011, p.63]
  5. Sep 14, 2011
    70
    If you're fording a desert highway at dawn, these songs will get you across. They're consuming and expansive, steady and constant.
  6. Sep 12, 2011
    70
    Wooden Shjips shoot straight into that barely circulating heart of rhythm and blues and reopen a vein of noise that it is difficult not to pump along with.
  7. Sep 13, 2011
    40
    What was once an exciting examination of a seldom-explored corner of rock and roll has become a listless, mechanical affair.

See all 27 Critic Reviews

Score distribution:
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  2. Mixed: 0 out of
  3. Negative: 0 out of