Maybe I’m not looking in the right places, but I feel there aren’t as many 70s metal/hard rock worship bands as there used to be. There are some here and there, but even these bands are mostly hanger-ons from the early 2010s occult rock boom (i.e. Lucifer, Jess and the Ancient Ones, etc.). What I’m looking for is a 70s worship band that was formed within the last few years, and it looks like I just found one: Psychic Hit. Hailing from Oakland, California, this oddball quintet formed in 2017 and have just released their debut album, Solutio.
Being a sucker for all things 70s, I should love Solutio. It’s a creative mish mash of various sounds and styles from those hazy daze. Therein lies the problem. Most 70s worship acts have an idea of which sound/style they’re going to focus on. You’ve got your organ drenched Purple-esque bands, your sleazy Zeppelin tinged hard rockers, and the obligatory Sabbathian doom disciples, just to name a few. Once a band settles on a niche, they mostly lie within the confines in it. Psychic Hit on the other hand sounds like they’re trying to figure out which niche they want to settle on with each track.
The album opens strong with “Livin’ On”. This high energy headbanger sounds like a cross between Pentagram and early KISS. The guitars sound like Ace Frehley. The singer sounds like a female Bobby Liebling. Add to that a raw, old school production and my hopes were high. Then as “Constellation” began, I didn’t know how to feel. Maybe it’s just me, but the lead riff sounds like a doomier take on a 70s Priest song which I just can’t put my finger on at the moment. “Victim of Changes”? I’m sure it will come to me after the fact. “Orocovis” begins as a spacey Hawkwind inspired psych suite, filled with various noises and atmosphere, before ramping up halfway through to a Sabbathian doom romp. Despite being six and a half minutes long, I don’t sense feel rhyme or reason to this song other than, “Look at us! We can do prog too!”
“Left for Dead” is my second favorite cut behind “Livin’ On”. This brief blast of psych punk aggression comes off as Dead Boys on acid. I wish the entire album stayed in this vein because Psychic Hit does a pretty solid job at it, but we’re back to Hawkwind land before we know it with “Hand of Fate”. Granted, this song is slightly more focused than “Orocovis”. After one last flex of their prog muscle, Psychic Hit closes things out with a by the numbers, old school hard rocker, “California Burnin'”.
There’s nothing wrong with Psychic Hit as a band. They’re grade A musicians who can do the 70s thing just as well as any other 70s imitators. I can just think of scores of bands with better songwriting and a more focused vision. Do they want to be prog? Psych? Doom? Hard rock? Hopefully we’ll find out the answer on album #2.
5 out of 10
Label: Seeing Red Records
Genre: Heavy Metal/Hard Rock
For fans of: Lucifer, Pentagram, Hawkwind