Los Angeles-based drone-rock group the Warlocks has a lineup that changes more often than a pickup basketball game run by Anton Newcombe, with as little as four members and as many as 10. (At last count it was seven.) What has been consistent over the years is the Warlocks’ buzzing guitar, ample bass thud and Bobby Hecksher’s mumbling vocals, which can be traced back to the same gene pool as ’90s psych-rock siblings Black Rebel Motorcycle Club and forebears Spacemen 3. The band’s fifth effort, The Mirror Explodes, is due May 19 on Tee Pee; rumbling and rattling single “Red Camera” hints at a subcutaneous sentiment, passion and rage that never quite explodes—it just festers.
“Red Camera” (download):
