Steeple

On their full-length debut, Tidings, British psych/prog revivalists Wolf People proudly unfurled a mighty mix of Traffic-cum-Tull flute, Mothers-meet-Cream guitar riffs, and heady, psychedelic atmospheres, but that was still just a collection of early singles. Steeple, however, is a “proper” album, and it finds the feral four establishing their identity even more forcefully. For a band that worships at the altar of ‘60s/’70s beard rock, it makes perfect sense that Wolf People beat a Led Zep-like retreat to a barn on the site of a centuries-old Welsh mansion to record Steeple, and the commitment to transcending modernity’s malaise is palpable. At times, the gritty-but-graceful guitar trot echoes prime Fairport Convention, at other moments, Syd Barrett-era Pink Floyd is evoked, and before Steeple is done, one gets the feeling of having trolled through a sampler of the entire 1967-’75 Pye/Dawn label roster, but that doesn’t mean Wolf People don’t have a sound of their own – if anything, they’ve toughened up since the time of Tidings and turned their attention towards more concise songforms. Either way, they still stand out among modern-psych peers like Black Mountain and Sleepy Sun.