Not quite a year ago, I remember being bowled over by “Running Out of Time/Après Jeudi,” my first taste of The Crystal Teardrop. If I recall, it was an inspired blend of post-Summer of Love, heady psychedelia, and MC5-esque proto-punk that really spoke to me. So a full album dropping into the review pile made my day…week?…year?
“Through With You” blends that late 60s Detroit sound with something of the earlier doo-wop girl bands of the fifties – fun yet ferocious, melodic yet muscular. At the other extreme, we have songs such as “Rain Parade,” a mix of authentic Byrdsian cool and touches of the Paisley Underground sound, which reignited that sonic torch a decade and a half later.
“For One More Day” is trippy psych-folk, “Last Chance” sounds like The Bangles in their earliest, punkiest incarnation, when they still went under the name The Bangs, (which underlines the Paisley Underground reference above) and“Nine Times Nine” is a squalling cosmic folk-rock groove which reminds you to give your old Grateful Dead records a dust off. The title track sees us out, a drug-fug blast of arabesque intensity that Jefferson Airplane would have wrestled you to the ground to have got their hands on back in the day. (And I reckon Grace Slick had a good right hook on her.)
…Forming is everything I hoped it would be, and more. Much more. I might have dropped too many names in the writing of this (call me a lazy journalist) but they are all garnered from my favourite section of my vinyl collection, which speaks volumes. And the only thing that still bothers me is that given their blend of Detroit muscle and San Franscisco trippiness, how the hell did a band like this rise from the mean streets of Stoke-On-Trent, in the UK’s West Midlands, the place most famous for reknowned ceramics such as Wedgewood and Robbie Williams!
That’s music for you, it happens where it happens.
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