It's been difficult to get these choices down to 100. I'm also not a believer in saying one album is better than another. Most of the time you are comparing Apples To Oranges. I'm not a List person, I just think what's the point.
However, for the last few years I have compiled annual Best Of 's because these posts seem so popular and the aim of this Blog is to get exposure (and Sales) for the artists. There is no meaning or judgement on an album that is Number 1, Number 100 or not on the list. Anything that I review on here, mention on Social Media or play on the Radio Show is as highly recommended.
I would also add that the Top 100 includes albums available as Download Only. To suggest that they are anything less than equal to a Physical release is grossly unfair, even more so in 2020 with all that has happened during the year. To qualify, an album has to be available for sale in any format.
For each album, I've posted a song from it and a link to where you can find further details on how to listen or buy the album.
It's been difficult to get these choices down to 100. I'm also not a believer in saying one album is better than another. Most of the time you are comparing Apples To Oranges. I'm not a List person, I just think what's the point.
However, for the last couple of years I have compiled Best Of 2019, normally I just said what my favourite album of the year is. I've done it again, because these posts seem so popular and the aim of this Blog is to get exposure (and Sales) for the artists.
There is no meaning or judgement on an album that is Number 1, Number 100 or not on the list. Anything that I review on here, mention on Social Media or play on the Radio Show is as highly recommended.
I would also add that the Top 100 includes albums available as Download Only. To suggest that they are anything less than equal to a Physical release is patently nonsense and omits many wonderful albums.
I will compile a Top 20 of Reissues and Compilations combined after all this is complete. For each album, I've posted a song from it and a link to the review, where you can find further details on how to listen or buy the album.
We've been talking about genres as labels a lot recently, largely in places other than here, one in particular getting a lot of stick. Well, The Galileo 7 are often classed as Psych Beat and I can think of no better description, because the quartet are exactly that.
The Galileo 7 aren't trippy and backward guitar enough for Psych Pop, but UK Beat Pop wouldn't do justice to the work that goes into the songs. Imagine a Carnaby Street Club, Men with bad hair and Paisley Suits and mini skirted girls grooving on elevated platforms. It's a sound that is forever Medway and The Galileo 7 do it perfectly.
Allan Crockford has spent the past three decades in a lot of admirable bands. The past ten years have seen The Galileo 7 go from strength to strength and There Is Only Now is as strong as you would expect six albums in to be,
The band are far more than a vehicle for Crockford's songwriting, all four members handle Vocals and as a collective, I don't hear many bands that plays as tightly together. Live, they are a revelation. There seems a real Doors Of Perception feel amongst the songs. There is even a direct song reference on The Last Hours Of Aldous Huxley.
The Last Hours... is a wonderful acoustic bongo driven trip. Although there are no real surprises here, there's a feeling that you wouldn't want there to be as The Galileo 7 are masters of their genre, a song like Everything Is Everything Else sums up beautifully what they do.
What I found most affecting here are the two songs that Keyboardist, Viv Bonsels handles Vocals on. Too Late and I Dream Of Sleep take the band in a much poppier direction, almost Kirsty MacColl. A special mention too for Drummer, Mole Lambert, I don't know how the man finds time to sleep.
You can buy the album here and everywhere. You can find out more about The Galileo 7 here.
Howdy Doody and welcome to the latest Garden Of Earthly Delights feature. Four bands that you should love and will spend the rest of the day wondering why you hadn't heard them earlier.
The Galileo 7 - Tear Your Minds Wide Open!
Medway would appear to be centre of all things Psych Pop at the moment. The storming amount of great mid to late 60's Pop that blasts out of Kent lately is vastly encouraging. Tear Your Minds Wide Open! is splendid Organ driven Psych Pop.
Many can do this, few can do it well, The Galileo 7 have mastered the genre. They even sound like the live version Of The Move on The Habit Machine and Baggy Madchester on Nobody Knows Anything.
However, it's the Syd Barrett esque Psych that makes most of the dents and this is beautifully done with all four band members driving the sound forward. Particular mention should be made to Allan Crockford for some great guitar riffing and sterling vocals.
The Green Ray - Half Sentences
Fans of the magnificent Help Yourself will know that Ken Whaley and Richard Treece formed The Green Ray in the Nineties. I love Help Yourself and their connections with Brinsley Schwarz and Man in the 70's.
The Green Ray carried on that tradition and there is a sadness in these recordings. Ken Whaley died in 2012, a year before the sessions started and Richard Treece passed away in 2015, so his final recordings are here. Ken's brother, Simon switched to Guitar to finish Half Sentences.
The result is the band's fourth album and it is a fine affair. Coming in as a sort of laid back Man or a less trippy Jefferson Airplane, at times pre AOR Journey, it's a cracking chilled listen. It centres around the 10 minute opener, Planes Crashing Into Birds, it's the other 7 songs that set the direction. Some wonderful low key Guitar rounds everything up.
This is another release on the fantastic Sugarbush Label, setting the standard again in Vinyl releases. You can buy the album from Sugarbush here or listen to and buy the album as a download here.
The Red Plastic Buddha - Songs for Mara
Songs For Mara isn't a new album, it was released in 2014, but it is the magnificent The Red Plastic Buddha's current album and this Chicago quartet show that the Psych excellence isn't limited to these shores. The band give a modern slant on Psych Rock, very much in the vicinity of The Luck Of Eden Hall.
So it's no surprise that Curvey guests as does Phil Angotti, so you are catching a drift of the quality here. The depth quota is high and although Psych Lovers will thrive on this, there's plenty for everyone else.
Cosmonaut is like Space Power Pop, A House Is Not A Motel could be Madchester, Stuck on Zero is Trippy to extreme. But it's the Psychedelic wonder that grabs you. She's An Alien is a fine opener, but it's the trippy splendour of Little White Pills that gets hold of me most. This is an ace album, a bit darker than the previous, All Out Revolution, but all the better for it.
The Warp/The Weft - Mapping An Absence Poughkeepsie's The Warp/The Weft are not like any of the New York Bands that I normally cover. I suppose you'd call it Acid Folk, as though we need another label, so imagine that Fairport Convention had joined a coven and you get the drift.
This is wonderfully dark Electric Folk. The album even closes with a spot of Dylan Thomas. Some of the song structures compare to the likes of Renaissance, there's a lovely mix of the Electric and Acoustic.
Mapping An Absence isn't a laidback listen, but these eight songs are both gripping and intensely rewarding. It's almost like the 80's Indie Brigade have got hold of Folk and given it such a shaking that it thinks it's Psych. This is a really really good album. Well worth taking a chance on.
