Country Ways

Country Ways is in no way an album of country music. What it does contain can be best described by the San Francisco music store Aquarius Records as “epic stretches of spaced-out psychedelia.” Carlton Melton is a quartet, not a person, by the way. And yes, the opening title track is a 20-minute journey of mind-melting space rock that was purportedly recorded inside a giant wooden dome in the Northern California countryside. Where many of their Bay Area contemporaries like Wooden Shjips, Sleepy Sun, and Lumerians play space rock with a groove-based nucleus, Carlton Melton’s drums are almost peripheral at times. The band is more focused on approximating cascading waves of bliss with an abundance of guitar effects and analog tape manipulations. The droning, pulsing, wah-wah–laden “Full Moon Revisited” further shows the band's love for the musically ephemeral. Eastern influences seep into the drones of “Harrington Fair,” where guitar leads ramble around ‘60s-inspired tones. The humorously titled “Use Your Words” recalls ‘90s shoegazing.