Wooden Shjips @ Stereo, 17 April

Another sold-out Saturday night at Stereo, and a nice way to launch a short European tour, notwithstanding volcanic ash and aviation after-effects. This San Francisco quartet waste no time by nosediving headfirst into their pointed take on garage/psych primitivism, a groove-drenched mixture of minimal krautrock and hypnotic non-blues. The songs are marked by a notable thriftiness: needle-drop a loopy line-and-hook, scuzz it out with reverbed vocals and then ricochet onto the next jam. Who needs choruses, or verses for that matter? Especially when your sound is this thick and substantial. Primary influences drift prominently on the twinkling surface: Suicide, VU, 13th Floor Elevators and Loop battle it out, skull-and-crossbones waving and canons blazing. Things really begin to heat up half way through, as the audience finally jumps onboard and starts to move. Ultimately, and perhaps unconsciously, everybody realises that current bands are usually good when they sound just like the old ones. [Eric Ledford]