The Embryos - Selling What You Want To Buy

As I mentioned in my review of The Embryos last album, National Absurdatory, the beauty of the band is the variety and that is largely because all four take lead vocal at various stages. You can read the IDHAS Review of that album here.

It's been three long years to reach this release and they have not lost their way around a melody. The arrangements have a knack of introducing something unexpected such as the spacey 80s keyboard run in Fortunes, which is essentially a great 70s Guitar Pop song.

Another example is the 80s groove of Little Demon which is interrupted by some stellar Psych Pop Guitar. But they can also do straight ahead. Frozen City is great Power Pop and I'm A Man is great late 60s UK Beat-ish Pop with a killer chorus.

Do The Donkey is a cross between 70s New Wave and early 60s dance along Rock And Roll. Desiree even gets a little Country, vocally and instrumentally.. The closer Onandonandon is a wonderful brooding affair in contrast to the jauntiness that surrounds it. It shows a completely different side to the Chicago Quartet and is a magnificent eight minutes.

The Embryos don't break out often, but when they do they are essential. The 80s Cars like The Embryos Live shows how well they do it and it is a companion to the excellent closer. Both are outstanding breakout moments.

But it shouldn't be forgotten how much fun the band create with the mellower Pop Rock that they provide. Two sides of the band are highlighted in. The melodic and harmonic craft and how ace they are when they move off their base. Splendid!

You can listen to and buy the album here. The CD is available on the Kool Kat label here.

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The Resonars - Electricity Plus

 

It has been a while since we caught up with The Resonars and we apologise for being so remiss. Our last coverage was 2019's No Exit and that also featured in our Best 100 Albums Of The Year. Electricity Plus really rubs in what we've missed.

The band have an ability to switch between genres and sound at ease and that belittles their reputation as a Garage Psych band. Gold To Blue, for instance, is great 60s Pop Rock that is harmony led, a song that you can sing along to, but if you just want to dance that's fine.

Sure As Shooting is a great mix of Bubblegum and UK Beat with the Brass bursting to get out. Yet, Easy To Be Found is great Psych Pop. Longfellow Trees gets even more Psych Pop with a big foot in Toytown. I gladdens the heart of this old man with his fanboy delight for all things Toytown.

Youngest Child even sounds earlier 60s, vocally, it gets close to skiffle and has a marvellous twang to it. Little Grey Man is super way Medway Guitar Pop UK Beat at its very best.  Spidery Light sounds very early Bee Gees.

The album feels wonderfully 60s, more melodic Guitar Pop than I expected. The arrangements are beautifully put together and the big stand out are the vocal harmonies. The vibe may be retro, but the songs stand up by themselves.

I love how bits of Psych creep in unexpectedly, but this does feel like great Pop, expertly played and written. They don't feel like a band that comes from Tucson, more Californian or Kent at times. That Electricity Plus is a splendid album leaves no room for doubt.

You can listen to and buy the album here. The album is available on Vinyl or as a download.

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Lunchbox - Pop And Circumstance

 

For artists with a 30 year career, Lunchbox's welcome return amazingly sounds like the excitement of a debut album. Also, for a band that comes from Oakland California, at times they sound very Brit Indie Pop from across the decades.

Dinner For Two kicks in all Pearl and Dean swinging Sixties and is followed by I'm Yours, You're Mine which keeps some of the character of the opener, but treads more into the Indie Pop of the 80s and adds some cracking Brass.

Don't Wait Too Long has a big whiff of French Cinema, yet is driven by a mix of Farfisa and more Great Britain. A little Saint Etienne even. Is This Real returns to 60s, all smooth and almost Jazzy. Time Won't Lie could be Rachel Sweet or Tracy Ullman and all UK Beat and Jangle Pop.

Yet Summer's Calling is great California Bubblegum Pop and fairly pop rocks along with an addictive Guitar riff. Love For Free could be 52s with an Acid Jazz instrumental accompaniment. Don't Wait Too Long however is part Ska, part Mod Pop.

New Year has a poptastic vocal and a Jangle that drives the song along. This World even treads into Psych Pop, but the closer, All Around The World is the real revelation. Part They Might Be Giants, part 90s Slacker Pop. It is wonderful!

Indeed the whole album is. A lesson in Indie Pop that is melodic, varied and inventive. The instrument cupboard has been ransacked to allow arrangements that feature the unusual, Brass especially, but there is also Flute and more. Magnificent!

You can listen to and buy the album here. It is available on Vinyl, CD and as a download.

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The Supernaturals - Big 7

 

Joe Greatorex is doing a cracking job in bringing The Holy Grail recordings from The Supernaturals to those who have searched for them for years and the new audience that the band have been successfully building. 

Big 7 was the first release from the band in January 1993, Cassette only. The band toured Scotland and the cassette was sold at gigs. So pre-internet days meant that this was hard to find outside of the country and has remained so until now.

7 now becomes 8 with the addition of a bonus track from the time, Robinson. The CD release and download is a welcome addition to anyone's collection. Firstly Robinson is a great addition, very close to the Brit Pop that was to go ballistic. 

The songs themselves have always been a great listen. They also underline the two comparisons that James McColl gets as a vocalist in Paul Heaton and Glenn Tilbrook. Big 7 has all the indicators that are needed to show how much bigger the band were to become.

St Paul is very Housemartins and Dylan's Day Off is very Labelled With Love. Beach Ball has the jauntiness that we have come to know and love, whilst Korpsecatcher is great Indie Pop. NATM is more of a strum along but adds a wonderful Psych Pop riff. 

Her Majesty shows that the band's trademark sound and wit were already well engaged. The signs and pointers to It Doesn't Matter Anymore are all here, but so few would have heard that. Until now of course and this will be a real treat to so many.

You can listen to and buy the album here.

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Extra Arms - Radar

 

Those who have followed us for a while know that we like Ryan Allen a lot. From his Michigan solo and sideman days up to the excellence of Extra Arms that we have here, a band that generally frequents the noisier side of Guitar Pop.

The quartet link perfectly through a locked rhythm section, a riff driven way of gripping you through dual guitars and Allen's rock out vocal. But Radar feels slightly different than what has gone before. It feels more polished, less in your face and this should bring an even wider audience that the band certainly deserve.

This is no way a criticism, quite the reverse. The songs are great as ever and there is still the ability to blast off. The guitar solo on Inflatable Boys is as wonderful and aggressive as the band have ever been. But there is also new directions that can be taken which show off the talent that is around.

Space And Time for instance is splendid anthemic Pop Rock that adds some great Pedal Steel  Mad Dog Blue for instance nods towards the likes of Fountains Of Wayne and Your Highness kicks of with a big guitar intro that edges towards 80s Rock.

Sit Back Up even treads into 70s Classic Rock territory with its Thin Lizzy like Guitar sound. Then there is the Replacements like scuzz of Shut 'Em Down which also nods to past. But is the instrumental additions to the album that really work.

Brass on All Good Things Take Time and Sax on Sit Back Up confirm the slightly new direction. Radar is a really accessible album that deserves big attention. It certainly points to bigger times which Extra Arms deserve more than most. It also shows them to be a proper band.

You can listen to and buy the album here. It is available on Vinyl, CD and as a download.

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The Shop Window - Daysdream

 

I've been dying to tell you about this album for quite a while. The Shop Window are from Maidstone, but the five piece have made their name as Jangle Poppers rather than the usual Medway scene's dalliance with Psych Pop.

Their third album is a double and quite a herculean affair that is divided into two, Days And Dream. Days covers the Jangle Pop that you know, love and sort of expect and boy does it Jangle. However, decades are crossed magnificently. 

Days covers everything from Merseybeat to the Jangle explosion of the UK 80s. From the US rocked up 90s version to the modern version dominated by the likes of Eyelids and of course pointers to Byrds. It does at times feel a bit Marr and Squire, even Ride, but is so beautifully done.

However, it is never set in its ways. It's A High adds a wonderful Twang and uses Brass well as Northern Uproar used to do. Beyond The Stars gets close to Brit Pop. Live To Love & Love Your Life is a gentle anthem that adds more tasteful Brass.

Dream is very different, magnificently so, almost experimental. Blues is a song that I've become very familiar, it chimes, but is more Pop Rock in which the vocal compliments the instrumentally so well. Loneliness sounds very Camp Fire.

A World Where We Remain is much moodier, melancholic and brooding.Happy Now continues that feel. Then there is the closer, Made In Heaven, all 7 minutes of it. More electronic, a song that grips you and builds into a massive soundscape that is almost hypnotic. A splendid listen.

So two very different halves make up Daysdream. One is the jaunty joy that Jangle should and does bring. The other has more of a darker shoegaze vibe in which the Jangle is still around, but more in the background. This is an album that is ambitious and yet so easy to like. Top Notch!

You can listen to and buy the album here. It is available on Vinyl, CD and as a download.

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For Closure - Hazy Mourning EP

 

The For Closure EP has already appeared on Add To Want List, which is cool. If there was a Venn Diagram of our similarity, the middle section has become bigger and bigger over recent years and this offering is something that you would definitely expect us both to review.

Here we don't go for written reviews of three track EPs but Hazy Mourning is so good that it has to be mentioned. The Los Angeles five piece also surprise as you would think that the background of their veteran backgrounds would produce an EP that was much noisier and in your face.

This is pacy Pop Rock of the highest order, a little 90s College Rock in places, yet also reminiscent of stalwarts like Husker Du. It is incredibly melodic, riff driven with massive choruses. For Closure sound like a new band, which they sort of are, that are fresh out of the blocks, new to the scene like.

It is hard to pick a favourite of the three, which is testimony to the quality. I only wish there were more and hopefully that will remedied with a full length in the future. Rather than underground, the EP sounds much more mainstream, wonderfully so.

You can listen to and buy the EP here.

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