By Brittany Turner
Wand is a Los Angeles based psychedelic garage-rock band with heavy metallic undertones. I could not think of a better way to describe the innovative group. Wand’s lead singer, Cory Hanson, absorbs you into a world of hypnotic ballads and throws you into a loaded psychedelic spectacular. He is backed by guitarist, Robert Cody, bassist, Evan Backer, drummer, Evan Burrows. The group released Ganglion Reef back in 2014 and it is something to revisit if you have not yet. This album, I believe, is what set the foundation for what they would create in their following albums, Golem, and 1000 Days.
If you are looking for an album to truly overcome you with artistic innovation, Ganglion Reef is an album that you could sit and dissect for hours but will never truly be able to piece together how they managed to create it. The album begins with “Send/Receive (Mind)” which hits you straight away with an eighties style erupting guitar solo. I was immediately taken aback when it was mostly a psychoactive instrumental meant to captivate you into their world. “Broken Candle” lightened the album with heavenly vocals and a fast-paced drum beat which makes you feel reawakened and infects you with the song’s energy. The album is varied and throws you into what seems like individual chambers of different tempos, guitar rhythms, and cosmic synth sounds splitting between upper harmonics and lower harmonics. They invert “Broken Candle” with their following track “Fire on the Mountain (I-II-III)” which is the main excursion of this album. In five minutes, they tell a story starting with a more somber and dreary tone and speeding up for a split second and suddenly it melts into an enchanting folk gem. The band carries this ebullience into “Flying Golem.” If you have ever listened to Ty Segall this song is like “5. ft Tall” carrying a nasally guitar and explosive symbols while mixing it with a plethora of soundscapes. Needless to say, “Strange Inertia (Ctrl Alt Death)” progresses the groups modern psychedelic technique. The song would seem like the perfect fit in the animated podcast The Midnight Gospel, with its jolly and bubbly keyboarding. However, their second to last track “Growing up Boys” tore at the heart strings of nostalgia. It was a warm way to send off the album. It seemed to be weighed down by melancholy memories and is the perfect listen to reminisce. If you are a Thee Oh Sees fan or an ORB fan, or maybe if you just want to listen to what the world of progressive-psychedelic rock has in store for us, Ganglion Reef, is a suitable place to start or continue. This album will remain timeless and has left its mark in the modern rock community.
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