Heaters – Holy Water Pool

Heaters’ second full-length, Holy Water Pool, is a segmented mirage of a record.

The Michigan group blends the bleary, reverb-soaked guitar tone of early 1960’s psychedelic garage rock – think 13^th Floor Elevators, The Zombies and The Electric Prunes – with the undiluted, bridge-pick up twang of surf rock, its antiquated cousin. The group’s lead singer even kind of sounds like a hoarse Roky Erickson projecting from the opposite end of a long corridor in opener “Kamikaze.”

Holy Water Pool draws its principal inspiration from an era before the thick, warm, tube amp sound became the staple of hard and psychedelic rock. Heater’s own sound is wiry and sharp, each guitar note like a pebble breaking the surface tension of a still body of water. “Honey” is so drenched in delay effects and slurred drums fills that it’s nearly possible to find the beat, let alone understand the lyrics. But that’s half the fun, isn’t it?

“Sanctuary Blues” carries a southwestern vibe, like a desert wind blowing through a pueblo ghost town. Bent, chorus pedal-soaked notes pierce through the fog of reverb that obscures both the bluesy romp and “Propane,” the track in which Heaters finally reach cruising altitude with a post-punk drum shuffle that’s heavy on the ride cymbal bell. “Gum Drop” is the most traditional piece of expansive, spacey psychedelia – it almost sounds like “Little Wing” covered by Dead Meadow, soaked with eerie keyboards and wailing wah pedals.

The bass groove steps into the forefront in the instrumental “Hawaiian Holiday,” which is fittingly littered with classic surf-rock dive-bombs. Thanks to the liberal use of guitar effects and vocal filters, “Bad Beat” sounds like a down home boogie-woogie barroom hootenanny whose reverberations we’re hearing a hundred years after all the patrons and musicians died, like the creepy ballroom music in The Shining. Which is kind of funny because that’s exactly what that song is, give or take a few decades; the lingering apparition of a nuanced but instantly identifiable genre that spent far too short a time in the warm waters of the 1960’s mainstream. Heaters sound as if the horrible visions that plagued Roky in his later years came to life and started a band shortly after acquiring vinyl copies of Loveless and The Ventures’ discography.