They say that you should never judge a book by its cover. But sometimes you certainly can. Cast your eye over the cover of The Crystal Teardrop’s latest album, Love You More, the choice of font, the band attire – striped loon pants, knee-length go-go boots, funky scarves and groovily patterned shirts – and even the band’s name, and you can make some immediate assumptions as to what you are going to hear when you drop the needle.
And those assumptions will be spot on, as the record heads into not only the territory that pioneers like Love and The Byrds called home, but also the sound that Paisley Underground revivalists such as Redd Kross and Jellyfish revelled in, and also some British artists like later-era Beatles and The Kinks more considered moves.
The title track kicks us off; guitar riffs jangle, spiral, and spin; beats are busy and boogie-some; old-school organs ebb and flow, and Alexandra Rose Mason’s sweet, cinematic vocals dance across this paisley-soaked psych-scape deliciously and deftly.
‘Times Are Gone’ shows the band in a more reflective mood, the music spacious, the vocals lush and layered, the guitars gently gyrating, folky flutes float through, and you can almost smell the patchouli oil in the air! ‘It’s Too Late’ sees the band really kicking out the jams, coming from a place where psychedelic pop and more robust garage rock meet and merge and wig out and ‘Room Without A View’ reminds us where bands like The Bangles got their sound.
Not so much a nostalgia trip, more an extension of those times, a suggestion of what it might sound like if the trippier end of the 60s was still going today and, in that cyclical way that music is subject to, perhaps less the sound of what has gone before and more an indication of where one strand of musical fashion might be taking us next.
Wouldn’t that be something?
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