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Psychic Ills

Who? Psychic Ills — Tom Gluibizzi (guitar/keys), Elizabeth Hart (bass), Brian Tamborello (drums), and Tres Warren (vocals) — are a buncha wiled-out Brooklyn-based longhairs hailing from Texas. Their first proper full-length, Dins is out now on the Social Registry.

What’s the Deal? Sure, these guys have been garnering comparisons to Spacemen 3, Sonic Youth, My Bloody Valentine, and Can, but let’s take a walk through one of the songs and forget that other bands exist. “Diamond City” opens with a 25-second conversation between two streams of shivery feedback that are promptly swallowed by drunken crowd noise — a phone call in the next room, chugging pistons, howling-wildcat-belly dancers, and one steady, nervous heartbeat. It’s the kind of song (and Dins is the kind of album) that’s unconcerned with verses, choruses, starting, stopping, anything really. None of the songs really end until the album does. The focus here is on the big picture — on piercing the gloomy firmament and spiraling through Technicolor wormholes until ears pop, eyes bulge, and water and lips peel away from teeth.

Fun Fact: Wolfmother frontman Andrew Stockdale’s massive afro was reportedly inspired in-part by Tom Gluibizzi’s mountainous locks. DANIEL ARNOLD

Now Hear This:
Psychic Ills – “January Rain” DOWNLOAD MP3

Talk: Are you feeling Ills? COMMENT

On the Web:
Psychic Ills at myspace.com