Chilean group La Hell Gang brings a batch of songs that are beautifully hypnotic, slowed down, super stoney bits of otherworldly psych rock. Released on July 22nd, “Thru Me Again” hits a few bluesy notes early on in the album opener “Inside My Fall” that brings to my mind the sometimes equally hypnotic Spiritualized. But by the time we get to “Sweet Dear” things have opened up a bit to include some truly lush explorations of sound completely awash in echo and haunting slide work. In some ways the elements of stoner-psych here are reminiscent of shoegaze.

Hypnotic explorations take center stage at the mid-point of the album on “The Beginning Remains the End,” clocking in at exactly 8 minutes. The instrumental focuses on the swirls of sound created over top of near static harmony. The blueprint followed here, and elsewhere on the record, includes an omnipresent near-clean-tone guitar that slowly arpeggiates the progression is contrasted by the sound of a distorted and delayed guitar off in the distance. That dynamic helps to create some perspective, and some additional depth to the texture. Every once in a while the clean guitar will pick up some overdrive and hit a more classic-rock influenced riff before falling back into its role as harmonic underpinning.

“Last Hit” picks up the pace a little bit, while “What You Want You Got It,” another epically long jam, really dials up the psych-shoegaze. Really, by this point I don’t even know if I am sure what the difference between shoegaze and psych are anymore, and I’m not sure that it really matters how one would classify this. If anything the album artwork explains things a bit better with its alien landscape. The music on “Thru Me Again” is in some ways otherworldly, transporting the listener to uncharted domains via hypnotic explorations of sound.

The album can be downloaded from their bandcamp page or ordered on vinyl here.