This instro heavy-psych trio hails from New Paltz, a small town in New York’s Hudson Valley, which I believe is on the bus route from Cooperstown to Kingston, NY. After a couple independently released albums, they’ve signed to Small Stone for this, their third record. The artist often shortened to INNIS seems to share post-rock’s penchant for lengthy song/album titles, and a few of these tunes are quite lengthy, as well.
After an extended sound-clip intro, “The Beard of Macroprosopus” gets all trippy and swirly for nine minutes or so. There’s a bit of an Earthless feel to this one, but it also has a distinct Middle-Eastern vibe. One does not need to be infinitely patient to get through it. “Across the Luster of the Desert into the Polychrome Hills” is notably more mellow, a slow, shimmering post-rock number that adds some synths into the mix. I think I even hear an OM bass line or two, and a pretty devastating doom section toward the end.
Jangly melodies meet 70’s style psych rock before dropping down to super-slow-mo mode on “Starry Wisdom,” then they set the dial to doom on “Pillars in the Void.” Album-closer “The Black Iron Prison and the Palm Tree” leans more toward the stark atmosphere of the former, a gloomy, downtrodden tune with a plodding pace that invokes images of a perp walk…in my mind, anyways.
