Appreciation

What does it mean that the local neo-krautrock quartet Appreciation is "healing the fatherwound"? Well, according to the mystical cabala, Chokmah (the Supernal Father) embodies "force," and Binah (the Great Mother) embodies "form." For several decades now, most underground rock groups have championed Chokmah over Binah, meaning they are more than capable of unleashing the inchoate forces of distortion and feedback, but they lack the ability to really marshal them into a meaningful aesthetic form. Thus, the fatherwound is the imbalance in the relationship between male-force and female-form. But apparently Appreciation is a group of sonic healers because its new disc doesn't suffer from this imbalance. Fatherwound contains scorching hard-psych that is both thunderously ecstatic and assiduously sculpted. For example, "Fatherwound" and the Boredoms-inspired jam "Feelings as Messengers" consist of twin guitars crafting sinewy-laced patterns of wah-wah and nearing-the-red reverberation while super-fat bass lines and metronomic drumming supply a powerful rudder for brisk yet agile navigation. Authentic rock bombast spills from the speakers, but not a second of this music feels hastily constructed or inefficient. Appreciation has brought Chokmah and Binah together in wonderfully LOUD unity.