It’s no easy thing to make an old school psychedelic rock record that isn’t either unintentionally parodic or covered in mold. Damned, though, if Virginia’s Snake Mountain Revival hasn’t done it with debut LP Everything in Sight. Recording in analog (or at least a digital plug-in that sounds analog) and drenching everything in reverb, singer/bassist Ryan Chandler, guitarist Zack Trowbridge and drummer Josh Woodhouse recall bygone eras without homaging anyone in particular. Of course, that’s in part because the heart of the record is the songs themselves. The dreamy “Just Feeling,” the powerful “Satellite Ritual,” the grungy “Graveyard Grove” and the instrumental “Water Moccasin” would hold up if played acoustically – being pulled through a psychedelic filter just gives them a tastier flavor. The secret to making good modern psych, as anyone from the Bevis Frond to the Black Angels can tell you, is to play the music as if you invented it, making it contemporary while still drawing on certain signifiers. On Everything in Sight, Snake Mountain Revival has it down.
