White Hills: Frying On This Rock 

That’s not to say the disc doesn’t dreamily devastate. White Hills has always specialized in the harder, more aggressive edge of space-rock, and Frying is no different. “Pads Of Light” unhinges itself like the jaws of an alien, twitching with distortion and dripping acidic incantations. “I Write A Thousand Letters” throbs with a chaotic, cosmic pulse that’s equal parts Can, Stooges, and Sun Ra. But the 12-minute instrumental “Robot Stomp” could diplomatically be considered filler—that is, if it were actually substantial enough to fill much space. Instead, the plodding, aimless track fails to harness its own bulk. Or even get out from under it.

The album’s biggest drawback, though, is its tone. Where H-p1 chewed through eardrums, Frying sort of squelches. Which is surprising, seeing as how engineer Martin Bisi has done noisy justice to everyone from Swans to Boredoms. Despite that, a few rows of teeth have been pulled from the group’s usually ravenous guitar-and-synth attack—and the whole affair is sunk in a dank murk that obscures the atmosphere rather than heightens it. Still, with incredible peaks like “Song Of Everything,” the lackluster sound is forgivable. At nine minutes, not a moment is wasted; like a lopsided centrifuge with no off switch, it wobbles nauseatingly until liquefying into a psychotropic, spoken-word protoplasm. “Spread your wings / Fly away,” chants W. as he lures the song to the lip of the abyss. It’s a hard offer to resist.