The Duke Of Surl - Borneo

 

Will Brown describes The Duke Of Surl songs as being recorded in New York low end Basements. I know from the amount of new music that I hear that when you read the words "Home Recording", you are not quite sure what to expect. It really can be the good, the bad and the ugly.

But Borneo is more on the wonderful side. Very inventive, varied and extremely interesting. At times, the album is quite insular, dark even, but at other times, songs can break out into wonderful Psych. It is the Psych that stands out most, it is all groove rather than in your face weird.

That Psych can venture into Psych pop, but it is never anything other than hypnotic. The groove just washes over you. The Bells features awesome Guitar work, but also adds Jangle and a cracking Bassline, whilst Whispers is almost Folk, Psych Folk of Course.

The riffs are awesome, particularly on the mind-blowing Reflections and Luther's Rock lands somewhere between Garage Rock and The Coral. There's even a hint of Glam Rock in the song. The Lie is wonderfully chaotic, starting almost Medieval and then breaking into something like Mark Knopfler riffing on something very outer 1967.

There are two bigger pieces when not a minute is wasted. Brown's Lullaby is as mellow as the album gets, more mainstream, nearly a ballad, but the six minutes plus builds and builds into something noisy and cerebral, almost ceremonial.

The Walk / The Storm is a minute longer and is half 70s Classic Rock until the song absolutely explodes into paint stripping Psych. This doesn't sound like a home recording. Psych and Prog have recently been waylaid by bands who want to show their ethereal side. This is proper Psych. absolutely splendid! Special mention to Bubbles, an hypnotic instrumental joy.

You can listen to and buy the album here.

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