Valley of Weights, 'I Was a Wartime Draughtsman'

Valley of Weights is an impressive polyglot – featuring members of Sky Furrows, Burnt Hills, the Winterpills and Vatican Commandos – whose self-titled debut is a frills-free double LP that throws a haymaker into the contemporary psych scene. It also feels unburdened by some of that scene's conventions; the de rigeur lo-fi production, stoned noodling posturing as improvisation, a sometimes parochial reverence for obscure records, etc.

The single "I Was a Wartime Draughtsman" is a savvy psych-punk merger that splits the difference between the guitar attacks of 1968-era electric Jorma Kaukonen and circa 1978 Robert Quine at his most furious. Spitting anti-war vocals and a relentless group performance, with the group shifting back and from serpentine-instrumental interplay to nihilistic wallop, "I Was a Wartime Draughtsman"is trippy, darkly gleeful and right on point.

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