Having released their debut EP, Alpha in 2016, Awooga have returned with their debut full length in the form of Conduit. Coming from the diverse musical backdrop that is Sheffield, it is perhaps unsurprising to hear many different components in their sound; they describe themselves as fusing together psych, prog, stoner rock and shoegaze.
The first thing to note about Conduit, is the riffs. They are definitely the most impressive part of this album, always sounding enormous and aided by an excellent production job. Reminiscent of the recent efforts of Tesseract, the huge lumbering guitar lines form the basis for the songs with the vocals floating around the riffs. However, this is an album that doesn’t seem to know what it wants to be. On the one hand it reaches for the ethereal nature of a band like the aformentioned Tesseract with the long-form songwriting of Witness, but it also attempts more pop minded huge hooks in the manner of Bad Sign, which does actually work to great effect on Waterhole.
However in the end, over the course of all seven tracks, you’re left with an album that feels somewhat aimless, stretching in different directions and never quite fulfilling the potential of any of them. Ultimately whilst the technical musicianship on display is very impressive, the songwriting doesn’t quite match up and this album is a little disappointing.