This third batch of demos from Oxfordshire quintet is as wonderful a slice of psychedelic wig-outs as its predecessors, opening with the mystical swagger of Bul Bul Tarang, it has the twiddly Eastern guitar noodling of Brian Jonestown Massacre mixed in with the pop-rock sensibility of the more avant garde Kula Shaker efforts, though Alex Abbott’s vocal has a certain grimy Northern soul quality that is a nice contrast to the spiralling, spacey rhythms.
Jalapeno is a dizzying grumbling descent into moodier Beefheart-ish blues rock, it has the sleazy muffled sound of an underground club, stylophone a tinny squeal alongside the track’s filthy mumble and Abbott’s hoot. Final track Fire begins in similarly ominous fashion, drums militant and portentous over a strident bassline, strutting eagerly towards a hopeful, near inevitable limb-shaking cacophony, it’s the kind of giddy jam that’s so easy to get lost in and the kind of track that The Graceful Slicks excel at, stoking the – aptly – fires of the past and cherry picking familiar tropes and playing with them. This track erupts into a delightfully wonky clamour of voices hollering out of the murk, before heading back to square one and repeating the trick.
As with the two previous EPs the bands problem is that they do wear their influences on their sleeve, and whilst they manage to pull off the retro psych-rock act without sounding too deriviative – indeed, they sound like a lost product of the era – occasionally it’d be great to hear them really branch out in their own direction and bring a little more individuality to the mix. Still, solid stuff from an ever reliable group.
[Rating:3]
