ninehertz

This is the fifth releases from Polymerase, of Quezon City in the Philippines, and whilst its only been four years since their surf-stoner debut Unostentatious, they've made some impression, an individual take on psychedelic stoner rock that has always been worth a listen, often creating music to melt away to. Mindpace is their latest, and they really push it out there over well over an hour of kaleidoscopic light trips.

After a moon landing quote and gentle introductory track, the twelve minutes of Divine Reefer gets us properly under way with a mystical opening which'll be of interest to Om fans, leading into wandering instrumentation and half-with-it vocals. It feels so out of it, before locking into something of a metronomic groove which, when it clicks, is delightful. The occasional rawer, heavier touches shine here too, adding tangible coarseness and variance.

What's noticeable here - and, it becomes clear, pretty much throughout the rest of the album - is its defining feature, one that is equally its charm and its frustration. There's a general aimlessness in the approach pretty much throughout, which of course goes with the territory for psych, but even so, at points it tests your patience. Can music of this style ever be too stoned in sound? At points you just have to laugh and submit to admiration in somehow creating that feel even within the freedom offered by the genre of tripped-out, droned-up, psychedelic-soaked doom.

It's floaty - at its lowest it feels like underdeveloped post-rock, but when it does work, such as on Interplanetary Echoes, particularly in its bulky beginning, there are favourable reminders of Mexico's premier space rock astronauts Vinnum Sabbathi. And then for all of it, for its sprawling length, its maddening moments of doing nothing, its hard not to feel a warmth to it, to a band simply putting it out there and jamming, and when you release yourself of that annoyance, you can only smile at the dedication to psychedelic stoner doom.