Warlocks

With all of the hype riding on The Lord Of The Rings and Harry Potter, a band named Warlocks should be cashing in big time. Hailing from California, Warlocks are a noisy psychedelic bunch that creates really loud and long rock'n'roll jams. Main man Bobby Hecksher formed the band out of frustration when he didn't get the vacant bassist position in Weezer four years ago. Clearly avoiding the Weezer sound, Hecksher's band borrows from influences such as the Velvet Underground, Suicide, Spacemen 3 and Sonic Youth to make some truly hypnotic and pulsating music. The opening track, "Jam of the Witches," is over 14 minutes of white noise that sounds like it just happened in the studio without any rehearsal. From there the songs get shorter, but not by much. Warlocks clearly search for their sound on this record, stretching it all out with enough guitar pedals and effects to make Kevin Shields jealous. Like their label-mates Brian Jonestown Massacre, Warlocks set out to put you in a trance. "Motorcycles," with its melodic, jangly guitars, is enough to put you into a light daydream, while "Skull Death Drum Jam" could easily bring the dead back to life with its tribal thumping. Rise And Fall sounds as good now as it would have 20 or 30 years ago.