Six Organs Of Admittance: Shelter From The Ash

Ben Chasny came into his own on 2005's School

Of The Flower,

a disc that crystallized his psychedelic Six Organs Of Admittance. But he trod

water on last year's Sun Awakens, and he continues to do so on the new Shelter

From The Ash.

As usual, Chasny's Robbie Basho-like ragas take center stage, but his

gravel-on-velvet voice haunts the metaphysically dour "Strangled Road," and he

thickens his modal mysticism with the Mahavishnu Orchestra-meets-Crazy Horse

eruption of "Alone With The Alone." It's ironic that Drag City's own reissue of

Red Hash—the

1973 album by obscure folkie Gary Higgins, whom Chasny covered on Flower—has rendered most

of Chasny's subsequent output a bit redundant. Still, Shelter bleeds enough drone and

bliss to make a pretty smear of reality.