Back To Land

2013 release. Back to Land, the quartet's follow up to West, is the first Wooden Shjips record to be conceived outside of San Francisco. Ripley Johnson and Omar Ahsan Uddin moved to Oregon, where the lush climates became a major influence on the songwriting. The band's scope expanded to include more earthy, grounded tones, such as the acoustic guitar, without abandoning their modernist psych core. There is an increased brightness to many of the songs on Back to Land, an easiness with which the band has flirted with in the past but never fully realized until now. The nervy urgency of West has evolved into an assured confidence, from the alliterative, interlocking guitar and organ groove of Ruins to the languidly compelling guitar solos of Servants. The addition of the acoustic guitar to the band's textural palate is coupled here with some of the most melodically direct songs the band has written.