Time Hitler And The Assholes From Space - Wild & Willing

Album review by kev@thesoundofconfusion.co.uk

As well as having one of the best band names we've heard for a while, Time Hitler And The Assholes From Space do pretty well on the tune front too. Naturally they have an interesting back-story: "THATAFS is a six-piece band of psychedelic pranksters come to Earth from another dimension to revive all things sacred in rock 'n' roll, and rid the universe of the nefarious ne'er-do-well, Time Hitler." Or in other words, they're six mates from high school who formed a band in Pennsylvania in 2009, released an acoustic album last year as well as several singles, and now present this fully electrified album, one which is DIY and recorded in a basement, presumably the basement of their spacecraft....

The reality may be a little different from the story but the music is a freaky mix of Zappa, Beefheart, Pavement, Galaxie 500, David Bowie and The Velvet Underground amongst others. At thirteen songs, a lengthy track-by-track rundown might be a bit much, so we'll opt for a few brief descriptions. 'Wild & Willing' is a lazy album with everything played casually, almost as if it doesn't matter, and this approach is perfect. Because while it sounds this way you know that time, effort, though and talent are all at play here. Opening track 'Fire!' is a perfect mix of the above influences. They do '60s-influenced garage-psych like masters too. Just check out 'Thin Red Line', the trippy 'Lies', and you can probably guess who 'The 13th Floor' sounds a bit like.

There's laid-back lo-fi ('In A Dream' which sounds like a warped version of Bowie's 'Soul Love', the sludgy psych of 'Never Coming Down', the ultra-chilled 'Spacemen', 'Time Hitler' is like Primal Scream on dru... on even more drugs). There are Western vibes to 'Mexico' and 'The Clap Song', soupy experimenting on 'Whale Songs' and 'Lost My Mind In Heaven'. They even manage that epic last track in the eight-minute stunner 'All Present'. Time Hitler And The Assholes From Space have taken the development of guitar music from a parallel universe, bolted on a load of cosmic sax and then loaded all their songs into a paintball gun and fired them at our ears. It's a fantastic experience.




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