Bring On the Psychics

Album Review

Quicksand's music has always seemed to move in two directions at once. The rhythm section digs into the floor while the guitar tries to escape through the ceiling. That friction remains the best reason to spend time with Bring On the Psychics, a compact record that finds the New York trio working comfortably inside a sound they can still bend into interesting shapes.

There is a welcome impatience to the opening stretch. "Get To It" establishes the album's directness, making its point without the elaborate runway that a veteran band's return can sometimes demand. Walter Schreifels has a useful voice for this music: conversational enough to keep the songs human, frayed enough to suggest that arriving at an answer has taken some effort. The hooks feel lodged inside the riffs, waiting for the rhythm to shake them loose.

Sergio Vega and Alan Cage remain central to that process. Quicksand's heaviness depends on the way bass and drums make a phrase move, and the pleasure here comes from hearing familiar players leave each other room. A guitar part can hang above the beat rather than double its weight; the groove can supply the force that distortion alone cannot. Even when the writing follows a recognizable route, that interplay gives it character.

"Regenerate" is a good example of the band's interest in keeping a short song unsettled. Its changes suggest possibilities beyond a straightforward charge, and the album benefits whenever that curiosity takes over. "Crystallize" and "Days You Run To" broaden the emotional space around the heavier material. They suggest a group willing to let atmosphere carry some of the feeling, trusting a melody to register without forcing it to compete with another impact.

The limitation is that the record's economy can also make it feel a little slight. Some ideas leave less of an impression than the playing that supports them, and the shifts between aggression and reflection do not always produce equally memorable songs. The band's command of its vocabulary occasionally makes a passage feel settled before it has had the chance to become surprising. The best moments leave you wanting an extra turn; the less distinctive ones simply keep things moving.

Still, there is real satisfaction in hearing Quicksand put this much care into the relationship between motion and weight. Bring On the Psychics offers a persuasive continuation of their reunion years, with enough bite to keep its melodic instincts from becoming overly comfortable. Its strongest passages come when the trio allows a small rhythmic adjustment or an unexpected patch of open space to change the temperature of a song. Those details make the album worth returning to.

Review by Kevin Cron