Rella The Woodcutter — I Know When It's Time To Get The Fuck Away

I’ll have to  admit that I wasn't aware of the existence of Rella The Woodcutter, even through he's an Italian artist, so shame on me for my ignorance. "I Know When It's Time To Get The Fuck Away", which has such a great title, is a twenty-two minutes E.P. paving the way for a forthcoming (and his third if I'm not mistaken) full length.

The front cover picture is very black metalish, but the sounds couldn't be more far away from our beloved nordic corpsepainted heroes' territory. The first track "Apocryphal" reminded me of Acid Mothers Temple: simple and psychedelic mellow weirdo rock with a rough minimal production. It sounds like it was probably the fruit of a single recording session.

The Second track "Are You Expired?" (again, very good title!) is in the same style, but unfortunately this time the song is ruined by Rella's vocals. It's probably a matter of personal taste, but I find his hippified lament unbearable. Things get even worse with third song "Coward", where an oriental-esque mourning voice sings over very simple guitar tones. The other two tracks don't add anything new besides the addition of an harmonica.

Overall, Rella The Woodcutter's sound is very close to the most liquid japanese psych rock units like the elusive LSD March. Somehow it seems like everything was recorded in a cotton-wool filled room, with drums being especially damp. Rella's guitar work is very restrained and precise but still noisy at times, trippy and crooked.

Everything is stripped down to the bare and basic, which is of course a good thing for me. That being said, I found "I Know When It's Time To Get The Fuck Away" fairly dull and boring. As already mentioned in other reviews I do enjoy this kind of psych/weird rock sometimes, but this work felt just too harmless, safe and forgettable.

I listened to this record multiple times in order to write a decent descriptive review but I'm not sure I was successful. On the other hand I'm very glad that this is just an E.P. : I'm sure I would not have been able to bear more than a couple listening sessions of a full length of this material.

My girlfriend's grandma used to say that "if you don't have anything nice to say, it's better to keep your mouth shut", but I guess it's too late. I'm sorry, Rella The Woodcutter! Anyway, this album recommended to fans of Japanese psychedelic rock and weird folk, and to late-coming hipsters. Not for me.