UNKLE - War Stories

As an album that rocks with squalling white-knuckle intensity as often as it induces thousand yard stares with its tripped out bliss, War Stories quite unpredictably succeeds in bridging a divide of light years between cult genre-meshing favourite Psyence Fiction and its more electro-fluent DJ Shadow-less sequel, 2003's Never, Never, Land. Mostly recorded in Kyuss producer Chris Goss' desert laboratory, the album boasts unprecedented flavours from various unlikely quarters: The Cult's Ian Astbury brings his spooky, shamanic persuasion to Burn My Shadow while QOTSA's Josh Homme assists by lending his twisted psychedelic howl and jagged guitar parts to various tracks throughout. However, it's the more languid, melancholic contributions from relative unknown Gavin Clark on Keys to the Kingdom and James Lavelle and Richard File's own ghostly vocals sparring on Price You Pay which lend an element of class and balance to a largely captivating roll of thunder. A welcome twist in the UNKLE legacy.