Ulrika Spacek
The Album Paranoia
February 5 2016 (Tough Love)
7.5/10
Words: Alison Mack
The Berlin-formed experimental rockers Rhys Edwards and Rhys Williams who comprise two-fifths of Ulrika Spacek turn out a My Bloody Valentine/Sonic Youth/Deerhunter hybrid on this debut full-length that is awash in penetrating melodies, dual harmonies and droning kraut-style guitarwork.
All in all they make for a hypnotic experience through the haze of distortion and fuzz grown on a bed of Verlaine (Television) / Malkmus (Pavement) guitar influences, from opening track ‘I Don’t Know’s lo-fi intensity to lead single 'She’s A Cult's which veers between harmonious and grating in structure. Elsewhere, the ominously epic six minutes of ‘Beta Male’, is a maze of discordant guitar riffs that deal out darkly forbidding drones, as does 'NK’, although to a less effective extent, while ‘Porcelain’ meanders along a head-nodding psych line with melodious harmonies, and ‘Strawberry Glue’ feels not so much sticky, as subdued and sinuous.
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