When your father is Tony Hawk, the man most famously known for helping launch ‘vert’ skateboarding into the spotlight, along with being the name to one of Activision/Ubisoft’s longest running cash cow gaming franchises (Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater series), it is going to need something special to help you spread your wings and help you to flee the nest, and in the case of Riley Hawk, this comes in the form of experimental psych-stoner band Petyr.
Citing the staples of late sixties and early seventies rock as core influences, along with the whole desert rock vibe and California skating scene (Venice beach etc) Petyr is supposed to capture the feel of its locale and lifestyle, but let’s see if this one actually comes up big in the pipe, or if it bails out in spectacular and amusing fashion.
And to be honest, you are probably best drawing that sharp breath between your teeth now. No, this isn’t a career ending injury for some urban sports enthusiast with protruding bones, blood and plenty of hits on YouTube styled sharp breath… More a sharp breath and then wonder “Is that it?”, because this self-titled effort is rather unspectacular on several fronts.
Psych-tinged music is supposed to be out-there, self-serving and pretentious enough to make a conversation between two LIPA graduates seem like caveman speak… But this really just leaves you wondering what all the effort was about when there is little to no pay off. Semi-hypnotic melodies dance around in the prolonged instrumental sections, multi-layered vocals with copious amounts of effects lashed across them to help spice things up distract and there are some ballsy sounding rock and roll riffs and grooves hiding there, but really, it doesn’t get the attention in the way it intends to.
The whole feeling of being underwhelmed is very noticeable. For the occasional spark of Sabbathian or Iron Butterfly like feel, there is plenty of nonsensical, pompous time wasting. As mentioned before, whilst psych rock is supposed to be a little off kilter, out there, self serving… This doesn’t really convincingly serve itself!
It’s nothing noteworthy, has little to offer in light of areas worth mentioning or tracks worth actually spotlighting and when stacked up against its peers in the genres it leans towards and borrows from… It really does fall short on all fronts. Definitely bail out on this one!
(3.5/10 Fraggle)
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