Mass Shivers

***MASS SHIVERS, Chicago’s darkest trip, have rolled a new full length on Licking River Records. Consumed by beastly guitars, the songs on Contoured Heat are simply menacing. Opening cut “More Bumper Than A Body Shop” stabs jaggedly before diving into a heavy groove, drums drenched in sweat smelling of the dark days of Altamont. “(I’ve Got The Power)” bounces spryly, reminding you that “the crippled and the beaten get even,” before tearing you through to the eye of a sonic cyclone with its loops and solos shredding in a panorama of psychedelia. Mysticism roars in the tracks that follow—“Outsider Erotica” entices like the dreamy glaze of a single night in Marrakech, its themes of tender seduction sung to something like the bastard child of Ananda Shankar and late-period Black Flag, while “Bilateral Dysfunction” emotes like a desert expanse that would not seem out of place on a soundtrack to the films of Jodorowski. Weighted, meditative explorations are central to “Languid Liquid” and the tracks that follow—“Oden v. Odin” with it’s wordless chant and enchanting hook, the lamenting lines and dense grooves of “Anonynominous”—an experience ripe with drone, repetition, and layers upon layers of delayed, effects-laden guitars. “Torrid Sex In East Berlin,” previously released as a limited edition 7-inch single, picks up the pace and delivers filthy riffs atop fast and bulbous drums. It’s sure to make your ass shake and deliver, if you’re of that kind, before the album closes with more delay-drenched moments in “Dusk” and “Beneath The Sand,” each pushing further towards the precipice with clear conscience.