The fourth album by celebrated San Francisco space-rock outfit Wooden Shjips has been pitched as a departure from the norm, an experimental expansion of the band’s signature sound.

So, what do we get? Electronic beats? Excursions into exotic terrains? Multipart opuses that stretch the boundaries of the standard verse-chorus-verse structure? Well, no. In the case of Back to Land, the mooted boundary-pushing involves the occasional inclusion of acoustic guitars in a supporting role in the band’s drone-friendly Suicide-meet-’Sister Ray’ stew, as well as tunes that occasionally risk a third chord to supplement the band’s customary two- and single-chord workouts.

Then again, you don’t really expect Wooden Shjips to change too dramatically. The band’s forte has always been hypnosis through relentless repetition, a psychedelic listening experience achieved through minimalism, a quest to distil the band’s sound down to the most basic of elements which are then churned until the listener achieves the desired freak-out, as opposed to the mind-expanding, sprawling explorations that are normally associated with the p-word. Much as with, say, AC/DC, you know where you stand with Wooden Shjips, and their mastery of their chosen form is near-absolute.

Against this backdrop, the subtle country-rocking Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere flavours and unusually bright melodic richness of ‘These Shadows’, built on a cyclical chord progression that could go on for half an eternity without many complaints, really is quietly revolutionary stuff, providing compelling new shades to the four-piece’s deliberately restrictive palette. Although compelling, the downcast ‘Everybody Knows’, the other notable departure from usual drone-rock tricks, fares less well, with newfound songwriterly aspirations and the band’s trademark thick fog of fuzz ending up somewhat at odds.

Elsewhere, we’re very much on familiar garage-psych ground, even though many selections (the opening title track, for one) replace the usual bleary-eyed unhurriedness with white-knuckle adrenaline blasts. Frontman Erik “Ripley” Johnson whispers the vocals in the manner of a thoroughly fried mind striving his utmost to communicate, Farfisa organ wheezes as it was wont to do on Nuggets-era tracks that inform the band’s back-to-basics ethos, and each and every opportunity to set another rippling guitar solo on a journey towards the distant stars is grasped with both hands.

At best, the results are thoroughly trance-inducing. ‘Servants’, built on little beyond an elemental, energised single-chord boogie-drone, is particularly strong, an extended cruise down the Neu!-authored autobahn towards a particularly heady San Francisco jam session circa 1969 in a souped-up Mustang, the car’s roof down and the driver’s elbow poking out of the window.

Back to Land, then: business as usual, but the business remains good.