Album Review: Wot by Mike Donovan

WOT marks Mike Donovan’s first flight from the Sic Alps mansion of weird. On it, he embarks solo on a mystical journey both righteous and hedonistic—solid aural gold. Bite it and see for yourself. The album laments mostly on ladies and love lost.. “Still In Town” walks on wobbly heartbroken ….

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When Mike Donovan ended Sic Alps, there wasn't a big explosive story worthy of its own "Behind the Music". The band had come to a more gradual, quiet ending. "I was the only person living in San Francisco. ... We were getting together when we could," he said. That information is interesting when ….

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Sic Alps were the baddest, saddest, weirdest garage band around for the best part of a decade. Like, next to them, Thee Oh Sees felt like A students — a homemade pipe bomb next to a drawing of a slingshot — and next to that, Ty Segall was a pincushion without the pins. Napa Asylum is still pretty much the best time anyone can have while having a really, really bad time, but, despite having gone from strength to strength while scrubbing off the scunge, they’re now gone, having disappeared the moment they started to clean up their act.

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Mike Donovan —WOT (Drag City)Mike Donovan was already moving towards clarity and melody with Sic Alps, a cleaner, more tuneful take on his old band’s foggy aesthetic. Here with his first post Sic Alps endeavor, he strips down to a rougher, but purer song craft. Even sketched in jangle, tambourine slap, a wayward trumpet and a blues-folk guitar that sounds eerily like Roy Harper, these tunes cohere, though in a backslanting, slacker-ish way.The best of these songs are rockers slipped a mild dose of muscle relaxant, “New Fieldhand Bop” tamps a Page and Harper duel (it’s Eric Park on the other instrument) down to the margins, while“Lost Wot” ventures a sleepy skiffle.

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