Directions to See a Ghost by Texan group The Black Angels is like the soundtrack to everything going wrong. It’s the sound of the whole world collapsing around you, of mountains crumbling, of the sky falling and shattering all over your head. All in a nice way, mind.

 In this follow-up to 2006 debut Passover, the self-proclaimed pundits of ‘hypno-drone ‘n’ roll’ have slipped even further away into the swirling psychedelic rock abyss, with an album of chaotic, often frustratingly winding expeditions. The ‘hypno-drone’ claim is right – listening to Directions to See a Ghost might just soon become an AMA-approved substitute for LSD, such is its swelling, curl-up-into-a-ball-and-rock-back-and-forth atmosphere. 

Apparently equally influenced by the Iraq War and ‘psychic information from the past and future’, the album projects a feeling of drudgy foreboding at every moment. The strange thing is that despite the darkness bubbling about the edges Directions to See a Ghost is a ultimately comforting album, and something you could just as easily fall asleep to. When frontman Alex Maas wails that “Something black answers back from the dungeon / and you smile” in ‘18 Years’, you soak it up with a smile because the words are carried along by a current of rhythmic organ and drums that seem to soothe out any potential sense of bleakness.

 The album stumbles off with ‘You on the Run’ – the tightest and cleanest sounding track on the album, with Stephanie Bailey’s drumming providing a powerful underline to the cyclic strumming and Maas’ distant vocals. Things get progressively more out of control as they move on, with standout ‘Mission District’ a deep and dirty insight into what it might feel like to have the room you’re presently in start spinning. It’s when The Black Angels get carried away – in amongst all that spinning chaos – that they are at their most successful, and consequently the cleaner top part of the album comes across as a tad bland upon repeat listens. 

There are some interesting sounds that poke up along the way, with an electric sitar doing its best Irish jig midway through ‘Deer-Ree-Shee’, and what sounds like a guitar doing a light spot of bagpiping in the terrific ‘Never/Ever’. Maas’ vocals mirror Directions to See a Ghost’s slow descent into anarchy, gradually seeming to move further away as the album progresses and eventually finishing in ‘In Return’ as a series of indistinct warm noises in between the ‘whoo-whoo’s. 

Directions to See a Ghost positively creeps out on all fours with the 16-minute finale ‘Snake in the Grass’, winding down to a humming bass line and then crackling open mic. Everything just broke apart around you and it was kinda nice.

Directions to See a Ghost is out August 30.