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Rocket Recordings to release new album from Hills on 28th August!

June 9, 2015

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Rocket Recordings to release new album from Hills on 28th August!

 “Sphincter-dilating bass grooves, vapour trails of hiss, pounding rhythms, organ drones and sparse vocal mantras.”  The Sunday Times

“Master Sleeps offers a mesmerising take on the space rock genre.”  Uncut

“Hills surpass the major touchstones of pysch rocks without ever seeming contrived or a dead-eyed retread of classic tropes.”  Louder Than War

“Listening to Hills is a truly loved up experience which hasn’t been seen since the heady days of rave.”  Echoes and Dust

The Gothenburg-based Hills are entering their ninth year of existence, in which they’ve released two full-length albums, the second of which, Master Sleeps saw a vinyl outing on Rocket last year.

Part of a rich scene in their homestead also including friends and Rocket Recordings label mates, Goat, they form the new chapter in a tradition of Swedish psychedelia that found its origins in late-’60s and early ‘70s freakouts and mind-melts by the likes of Baby Grandmothers and Älgarnas Trädgård – not to mention the unholy trinity of Pärson Sound, International Harvester and Träd Gräs och Stenar – before being developed by the likes of The Spacious Mind and Dungen in the last two decades. These inspirations make their mark on Frid by journeying inward, via mantric repetition and hip-shaking pulsations as on the ten-minute monolith, ‘Och Solen Sänkte Sig Röd’, yet they can also lurch into the unknown via the fuzz/wah odysseys of the aptly monikered ‘National Drone’ and the ceremonial exhortations of the closing ‘Death Will Find A Way.’

 

As they also showed recently at a rare and spellbinding appearance at Liverpool International Festival Of Psychedelia, Hills have landed on a rich and intoxicating sound that sidesteps the cliches and humdrum stylistic foibles that often plague modern-day psych, in the process breathing new life into an approach that can sometimes seem in danger of appearing redundant through lack of imagination. 

Frid, their most out-of-mind and out-of-sight effort to date, crystallises everything that makes these Scandinavian satyrs stand out from the global herd; adventurous experimentation and fearless hallucinatory intensity, rendered with brass-knuckle fortitude. The end result is 38 minutes that translate into a feast for seasoned crate-diggers and fresh-faced converts alike.

Frid is released 28th August 2015 on Rocket Recordings on LP/CD/Download.

TRACKLIST: 
1) Kollektiv (4:44)
2) National Drone (7:47)
3) Anukthal Is Here (5:53)
4) Milarepa (3:02)
5) Och Solen Sänkte Sig Röd  (10:52)
6) Death Will Find A Way (4:46)

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