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AUNT NELLY Aunt Nelly Time For Action LP/CD Aunt Nelly is quite some girl, with an impressive lineage stretching back to the latter days of the ’80s mod revival. Made up of
three parts The Clique to one part each from Medway garage bands The Bresslaws and The Effectives, the Kent-based group take the raw ’60s-inspired R&B of their previous acts and gives it a spit and polish with powerful soulful vocals by Alex Petty and a classy touch of jazz-beat cool. Recorded in analogue at Ranscombe
Studios, the result is a debut album that runs the gamut of mid-60s sounds where steely blue-eyed soul numbers such as ‘You’ve Gotta Beg!’, an excellent cover of John & Lee & The Checkmates’ ‘Bring It Down Front’ and ‘Knocking At My Back Door’ shimmy up next to funky, Hammond- powered psychedelic-soul (‘Waiting For Alex’), before finishing up with jaunty pop song ‘Smile’. Alan Brown
BABY WOODROSE Third Eye Surgery Bad Afro LP/CD The evocatively titled Third Eye Surgery is the sixth album by the Danes, catching them in a much heavier and spacier
mood than on their previous recordings. Ordinarily touting a garage-psych vision, Lorenzo Woodrose – the multi-limbed brain behind Baby Woodrose, Dragon Tears, On Trial and Spids Nogenhat – has this time around combined the garage vibes with liquid acid improvisations and the result is possibly one of the best psychedelic albums of the year. Long, sinuous, eastern acid-rock excursions are emblazoned with ripping fuzz bass, twirling keyboards and flashes of sitar. The ’60s influences are still intact, with chiming 12-strings and thumping rhythms, yet the end result is a mixture of Hawkwind, The Seeds, Byrds, Stooges and Monster Magnet. ‘It’s Just a Ride’ is a prime example; a spiritual kick in the teeth loaded with lyrical lysergic insight. Housed in a mind-blowing sleeve, this is surely a future classic. Richard Allen
THE BACKPEDDLERS Songs Of Guilt & Revenge Harvest Sum CD/LP
The baby of Mark Norris, former front man of rollicking powerpop outfit Girlpope, The Backpeddlers formed in 2005
offering a far more restrained garage-rock sound than fans may have expected. Songs Of Guilt & Revenge is a colourfully broad combination of old school Brit-rock and Americana, flitting surprisingly well from country, to jaunty blues, to pure ’60s rock ’n’ roll. Opening
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with the raw and raucous ‘Turn The Tables’, Norris and his Buffalo, NY boys try an intriguing amount of genres on for size, even making a good go at a gently strummed and wistful ballad, ‘Old Father’s Blues’, which leaves the listener in a state of pleasing contentment. This release, The Backpeddlers say, “took a lot of pain and a little inspiration” and was influenced by Norris’ idol, Alex Chilton of The Box Tops whom he met at a gig shortly before Chilton’s death in 2010. Hannah Stuart-Leach
LE CHELSEA BEAT Mesdames Et Messieurs Killer Diller Vinyl/CD
Montreal may not be known as a hotbed of garage psych insanity, but this sextet is poised to put it on the map. Pat Meteor &
Co. fire on all cylinders with jangling 12- strings, headswirling organ flourishes, heartpounding drums, and a dual-guitar attack that fills in with all the right noises. ‘Tiger’ and ‘Devil’ (in English) growl like Iggy on a weekend bender, ‘Les Elephants Alcocliques’ is a psychotic circus tune sung by an escaped mental patient, and ‘Victim Of The Circumstances’ adds some surf/punk swagger. The omnipresent organ trappings deliver
a groovy, Doorsy element, as if Ray Manzarek fell into a bowl of Chocolate Soup, their cover of the Wimple Winch classic ‘Save My Soul’ is a pure adrenaline rush, and the coed duet with Poupee Fortrell on closer ‘Avec Les Garcons’ successfully channels the ghosts of Serge et BB. Jeff Penczak
DEAN ALLEN FOYD The Sounds Can Be So Cruel Crusher CD/LP
balladeering to a horny blues squall. This really is a band that’s adding something valuable to the psychedelic continuum. It just goes to prove that new psych music can be as exciting as the old – the bands never went away, they just became that little bit harder to find. Austin Matthews
HORISONT Second Assault Rise Above CD/LP Horisont’s debut album was one of our favourites from 2009 – a perfect blend of doom- tinged hard-rock and vintage stylings.
Their second effort (despite boasting some truly hideous artwork) builds on the original and takes the band to the next level of excellence. Perhaps showier than their maiden
effort, the twin guitar attack of Charles Van Loo and Kristofer Möller bring to mind acts from the mid-to-late ’70s rather than the 1971 Purple/Sabbath worship of the debut. The trump card in the band is lead singer Axel Söderberg’s terrific boozy rasp – able to hit the high notes without falling into heavy metal operatic clichés and still sounding heartfelt and yearning enough to carry the slower songs.
This album really is a blaster that can stand cheek by jowl to the glory days of the ’70s. Stylistically it’s somewhere halfway between Witchcraft and Graveyard but with better songs than both. Highly recommended. Austin Matthews
JANEY & THE RAVEMEN Stay Away From Boys Soundflat LP Right then, we’re back in the early days of the British beat boom. A pal tells you about this great new group that she’s seen
playing up at The Giaconda in town and urges you to come with her and check them out next time they are playing. So you take the plunge the very next weekend, and are mightily impressed by their style and overall presentation. They come across as lovers of vintage
All naysayers who have their heads firmly transfixed in ’60s psych and never listen to new music need to hear ‘Please Pleaze Me’ by Dean Allen Foyd. It’s a rollicking wild psychedelic thrill-ride as exciting as anything in the magical decades of yore. LISTEN TO IT IMMEDIATELY.
Such uncalled-for capitalisation aside, this album is a real buzz of psychedelic sounds veering from deep psych excursions to surf-spy riffs, bluesy jams and languid ballads. The band prove to be masters of each style with great songwriting and playing throughout. A further frisson is provided by the masterful vocals of front man, Francis Rencoret, which run the gamut from plaintive
rock ’n’ roll and have a spirited, energetically engaging girl singer. They can also do great versions of songs you already know and love by the likes of already popular Merseybeatsters The Swinging Blue Jeans, alongside obscure material from the Joe Meek stable. The drummer really knows how to keep the rest of the group on their toes too with a relentless display played out on the snare, cymbals and tom-toms. Good, spangly- sounding lead breaks too, that recall the best of the early post-Shadows contenders, and, funnily enough, some by future Edinburgh beat-renegades The Kaisers. The group is called Janey & The Ravemen and I urge you to go and see them, and take a pal or two along. While you’re at it, purchase Stay Away From Boys – you won’t regret it! Lenny Helsing
THE JUNIPERS Paint The Ground Self- released/
www.cdbaby.com
A few years ago Leicester’s The Junipers were gaining rave reviews in the music monthlies and receiving lots of airplay on BBC Radio 2 and 6 Music with their debut album Cut The Key. Unfortunately plaintive, harmony based pop – even if it’s appreciated by taste-makers (and us – we included ‘Geordie Can’t Swim’ on our covermounted comp It’s Happening Volume One) – no longer holds a place in the collected massive’s heart and follow-up Paint The Ground is only available as a self-released download. Format aside it represents the logical progression from that initial blast of pop perfection. The arc of this new (four years in the making) album is the kind of British pastoralism that Heron mastered in a Berkshire field in 1970 – part bucolic pop and part freewheelin’ West Coast hippiedom with the sensitive harmonies of The Hollies still intact . ‘Golden Fields In Golden Sun’, ‘Dandelion Man’, ‘Antler Season’, ‘They Lived In The Valley’… the titles say it all. Heavenly.
Jon ‘Mojo’ Mills
MR DAY Dry Up In The Sun Favorite Recordings CD
From Lyon, France come Mr Day with their sophomore effort. They seem to have studied Paul Weller’s blueprint for soul-infused rock
pretty meticulously, although, unlike Weller’s staid meanderings, Mr Day infuse the proceedings with a bit more action. Borrowing liberally from the aforementioned Weller, Primal Scream and all manner of soul music, the group has the advantage of Gallic flavour, which keeps it from treading into mere copycat territory. The band is solid, the playing tight and the songs hook-laden. Mr Day clearly wear their influences on their sleeves but the tunes are there, peppered by sufficient organ, sitar flourishes and soulful vocalising. Although not exactly my cup of tea, it was a pleasant enough half an hour. My vote for top tunes go to ‘Head Down The Water’ with its strains of late period Traffic and ‘One Step’, which sounds like The (English) Beat in one of their more poppy moments. Eric Colin Reidelberger
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