"The first time I heard Hopewell was years ago, performing at an artist loft in South Williamsburg. I was a newcomer to New York City and a friend had tipped me off to the band because two of their members were also playing in Mercury Rev, who were a favorite of mine. All that I really recall is my first impression of the group: dark, raw, and wonderfully psychedelic. Since then, we've seen a lot of different music phenomena sweep through this town and the world at large, from dance punk to new weird America; all the while Hopewell have continued to make music on their own terms, with slight reinventions and occasional member changes, but at their essence still a band who could be just as at home rocking out in an old loft space as on a big stage warming the crowd for My Bloody Valentine -- as they did in Chicago last year. One thing that has been missing in their recordings, however, is the spontaneous energy of their live shows, something that the band's newest album rectifies. Opener "Preamble (pt. II)" winds up from a sun-kissed chorus of voices and lands into an acid bath of fuzzed-out guitars and the smell of burning tube amps. I swear the next track, "Island," could be Hopewell's answer to Jane's Addiction's "Mountain Song," as Jason Russo's voice echoes and soars above the tribal stomp of the drums and wailing guitars. In contrast, "10,000 Black Masses" is stripped down to a slow, bass-led repetition that conjures images of desert sunsets and peyote, and nicely sets the stage for the third-eye opening freak-out of "Stranger," driving the point home that space rock is back, if it ever left." OTHER MUSIC

"...breathtaking, soulful psychedelic rock with a dark turbulence at its heart: the two elements tugging at each other until a music that is both disquietingly beautiful and emotionally powerful is all that remains." Stevie Chick, NME

"Hopewell has achieved the feat of retaining the hallmarks of great psychedelic music without any of the meandering – there's never a wasted second in their dynamic, solid, and intelligent compositions – and that very deliberateness is never at the expense of their soulfulness and poetry." NEW YORK NIGHT TRAIN

"When Hopewell add some hangover-hazy honky-tonk grit to their spacey sprawl (The Notbirds, closer Square Peg Teeth), the results are uniquely out of this world."; Timothy Gunatilaka, ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY