Wellwater Conspiracy- The Scroll and Its Combinations

by Jen Grover


A Wellwater Conspiracy album is like a homemade time machine. With Matt Cameron and John McBain at the controls, it takes us back to experimental 60’s and 70’s garage bands, while remaining current, and offers us new futuristic dreams of the B-movie kind, with buzzes, whirrs, alien voices, and unearthly machine noises. The journey is fun and cool, more cruisin’ with the top down than science. On our trip, we pick up Wes C. Addle (aka Eddie Vedder), who guests on "Felicity’s Surprise." We scavenge a scrap of Ben Shepherd’s past for the early Floyd-esque "Keppy’s Lament" – an old, previously recorded track, the use of which he didn’t know about before the album was completed. Kim Thayil joins the ride for three tracks. Although each album becomes less lo-fi in texture, none yet sounds too machined or electronically decorated. Cameron’s voice continues to improve, becoming stronger, smoother, and more accurate, but I miss Shepherd’s edge-of-insanity wails and growls. At least Shepherd has been performing some vocals live with the band lately. My main complaint is that the album’s short, clocking in at only 37 minutes. Surely they had it in them to give us a couple more songs. Or perhaps the time machine left us behind prematurely.


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