Listening to
Destruction Unit's
Deep Trip, it's easy to imagine that, in the moment you push play, a sonic dam is demolished, releasing an unstoppable torrent of psychedelic noise whose only goal is to pour over everything in its path. Blown out and busy, the album delivers something that feels more wave of sound than wall of sound, continually crashing and building back up into a monumental and relentless force. Despite its heaviness, though, there's something oddly soothing about
Deep Trip. Using a sort of enlightenment through punishment model,
Destruction Unit create something so overwhelming and chaotic that listeners have no choice but to give themselves over to the experience, allowing them to find a sense of trippy salvation within the swirling maelstrom of feedback and crashing drums, making the album an almost meditative experience. There are lots of bands working in deeply in-the-red garage psych, and while many of them get the garage parts down, the psych elements seem to suffer.
Destruction Unit are actually able to bring both of them together perfectly, not through any kind of careful balancing, but by simply sending as much noise as they can possibly make down the pipe all at once. This all-or-nothing approach makes
Deep Trip an exhilarating listen that's just as capable of amping listeners up with its vital punk energy as it is freaking them out with its surging undercurrent of mind-altering sludge, making for yet another feather in the cap of
Sacred Bones and their ever-growing lineup of head trip-inducing bands. ~ Gregory Heaney
