August 6, 2023 by A.S. Van Dorston

F**k school, there’s seven more weeks of summer, and a batch of new great psych albums to add to the soundtrack, also including Agusa, Weite and Night Beats.

For the most part, indie rock and pop has been a blight on psychedelic music. With just a few exceptions (The Flaming Lips, Mercury Rev, The Black Angels), psych bands are better off acting like the 80s through the 00s never happened. Look at what happened to Tame Impala. They got popular with the cool kids and went down an incredibly lame sinkhole of easy listening funk. There is of course tons of great funk and disco, but when slapped on top of perfectly good psych pop in line with the current trendy production styles, it’s doomed to be cringe-inducingly dated in short order. My favorites The Sonic Dawn and Rosalie Cunningham may sacrifice popularity in the short term, but their music is going to sound good decades from now.

Other artists are toeing the line with some success. Dungen’s latest album last year absorbed more recent influences with great results. It’s been a while, but Syd Arthur‘s Apricity (2016) was a shining example of modern sounding psych prog that isn’t dated. Triptides, Elephant Stone and Bhopal’s Flowers also tastefully integrate 90s and 00s sounds. Two Austin psych pop bands, Holy Wave and The Bright Light Social Hour have also done well for themselves, and both released albums on Friday, along with the first album from Paisley Underground legends Rain Parade in 38 years.

Holy Wave – Five of Cups (Suicide Squeeze)

Formed in El Paso in 2008, Holy Wave started as kind of lo-fi garage psych band with surf influences on their early singles and first full-length, Relax (2014). Through the next three albums, they dabbled with adding elements of dream pop, shoegaze and kosmische to their psych pop, with promising results, especially on Interloper (2020). On their fifth album, they move on from the insistent motorik rhythms that made Interloper so addictive and take a more languid approach. They join forces with Mexico’s Lorelle Meets the Obsolete for a little dreamy shoegaze on “The Darkest Timeline,” and another Mexican artist, Estrella del Sol on the ambient/ethereal wave closing track. Five of Cups brings to mind Tame Impala’s early bedroom psych approach, and Triptides, but with more complex layers of sound that get my increasingly engaged attention on my third listen.

The Bright Light Social Hour – Emergency Leisure (Modern Outsider)

Formed way back in 2004, Austin’s The Bright Light Social Hour is only on their fifth album since 2010. They caught my attention with Jude Vol. I & II in 2019 & 2020, with some really schmoove kosmiche infused psych pop. On their latest, they circle back to some funk elements from their debut album (which also featured, for better and worse, post-hardcore, post-rock, and southern boogie blues jams), while continuing the synth pop elements added on Space Is Still The Place (2015), enhanced by bits of prog. This time they really lean into the highly polished sophisti-pop approach. In the wrong hands (Tame Impala), this could be awful, but they’re just too good for the music to go off the rails. This is summer music that at first percolates in the background with the hum of the air conditioner, but soon seduces with the subtly relentless grooves, enhanced by some really effective arrangements (expertly placed background vocals, just the right amount of synth burps and sighs, and studio class funk drumming). Just do the planet a favor and use protection.

Rain Parade – Last Rays of a Dying Sun (Label 51)

The inspiring summit of 3×4 (2018) saw Paisley Underground bands firing up their respective psychedelic engine rooms and covering each other’s songs. Along with The Dream Syndicate, The Bangles and The Three O’Clock, the three tracks from Rain Parade were particularly enticing, as the original incarnation released only two full lengths and an EP, leaving some unfinished business. And sure enough, their third album is better than Crashing Dream (1985), and just about as good as Explosions in the Glass Palace EP (1984). Possibly spurred on by the consistently solid work of The Dream Syndicate’s recent catalog, this is really a nice surprise, given the fact that primary songwriter David Roback passed in 2020. It goes to show that the level of writer Matt Piucci’s contributions may have been underestimated in the past, and he kept up his chops, collaborating with Roback in Viva Saturn and the Hellenes. Even with a couple new members, the band successfully revived the special juju that made them such a cult favorite. The vibe is mostly less ethereal (aside from the delicate “Couldn’t Stand to Be Alone”) than Emergency Third Rail Power Trip (1983), but contains all the elements (Byrds, Love, Velvets, Crazy Horse, Big Star) that made the Paisley Underground scene so enticing, leaving us craving more for the past 38 years. It’s influence is greater than some might assume, as Prince’s psych songs from 1985 and Paisley Park studio were inspired by the scene (his return gift was “Manic Monday” for The Bangles), not to mention dozens of psych pop bands that have populated the underground ever since. Standouts include the delicious fuzzy guitar interplay on the title track, “Got the Fear,” where the guitar riffs stretch between pounding drums in an almost Zeppelinesque manner, and “Left the Fire,” which closes out an overall melancholy batch of songs on an uplifting note. This is a reunion album better than anyone could have expected. | Buy

Me And My Kites – A Safe Trail (MAMK)

Sweden’s Me and My Kites evolved from projects that bandleader David Svedmyr started in the early 2000s with his brothers, Lost in Rick’s Wardrobe, which involved into the current band in 2012. The name was inspired by a 1971 track from UK progressive folk band Fuchsia, which Svedmyr borrowed from Dungen’s Reine Fiske. His focus on early Pink Floyd era psych pop expanded into bucolic hippie pop and apparently a lot of nude frolicking in woodlands, lakes and rivers, as documented by three of the band’s album covers. Their fourth album is the first since Natt O Dag (2018), and involves a lineup change, replacing Svedmyr’s brothers. The middle of the album features a five-song cycle, “The Guardian of the Garden”. Is it an epic gnome poem? Not sure, I’d need to read the lyrics, but it’s not quite a complicated Jethro Tull style prog folk opus. The 15 minute piece is a cohesive, dreamy piece, though there are plenty of orchestral pop instruments added to the mix – flute, fiddle, Mellotron. The bare-assed fun is more innocent along the lines of leaping into water trunks-free, and is a lovely soundtrack for summer lounging that evokes hazy childhood nostalgia.

Agusa – Prima Materia (K2)

Malmö Sweden’s Agusa have a strong folk element, but the through their five albums since 2014, they focused on sprawling psych prog epics that often would consist of just two tracks per album. For those inclined to deep dives into flute heavy instrumental prog, it’s highly listenable, and their latest album is possibly their best. Prima Materia presents four tracks of easily digestible and gorgeous music, the longest track being the first, “Lust och fägring (Sommarvisan)” at 14:30.

Weite – Assemblage (Stickman)

Another fabulous collaboration from Elder’s Nicholas DiSalvo with bandmate Michael Risberg along with members of High Fighter and Lawns. This quickly assembled piece of instrumental German kosmische musik includes bits of psych prog and jazz fusion, but holds up well in comparison to classics from the likes of Popol Vuh and Cluster.

Night Beats – Rajan (Fuzz Club)

I was all in when Night Beats, originally formed in Seattle, released two albums of delightfully scuzzy garage noir and psych. Since then, bandleader Danny Lee Blackwell has drifted around the country in a nomadic existence, sometimes living in his hometown of Dallas, sometimes L.A. Just as it’s hard to know where he is physically, it’s hard to keep track of what sounds he will explore next. Whether it’s Southern rock, R&B, country blues or even Bollywood music, it’s all pretty damn good. While the Indian music is a surprise, it’s Blackwell exploring the influences from his mother, who was a teen Bharatanatyam dancer. It’s all integrated into his other explorations with Brazilian psych, Anatolian funk, Chicano soul and dub.

Temple Of Angels – Endless Pursuit (Run For Cover)

I nearly forgot about this Austin band, and the fact that I was anticipating their debut album. To be fair, their first two EPs were released way back in 2017 and 2018. To be honest, I’d forgotten who they were, and needed to circle back to spend more time with the album. It seems so far that they have mostly fulfilled the potential shown in their early EPs, expanding their focus on darkwave post-punk and goth, to inhabiting nearly all the psych-adjacent subgenres of ethereal wave, dream pop and shoegaze. They’re not blazing any new trails, but these days I’m happy with simply plenty of interconnecting paths without setting the whole woods on fire.

King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard – PetroDragonic Apocalypse; or, Dawn of Eternal Night: An Annihilation of Planet Earth and the Beginning of Merciless Damnation (Flightless)

Okay, while a good portion of King Gizz’s catalog involves psych music, this is all metal. I wasn’t sure that I needed more metal from this band, because I wasn’t super into their previous excursion, Infest the Rats’ Nest (2019). However, this fusion of prog metal, thrash, stoner and speed metal is much improved, and too good to ignore. So yeah, a bit of a palate cleanser after all the mellow psych featured here. Sometimes you just gotta rage.

Estrella del Sol – Figura de cristal (Felte)

This album released June 30 is a late discovery thanks to her guest spot with Holy Wave. Psych folk and dream pop are subtle elements of her sound that can mainly be categorized as ambient pop and ethereal wave on Estrella del Sol’s second album. The Mexico City based band consists of Estrella del Sol Sánchez on vocals and guitar, Sebastian Neyra on bass and Callum Brown on drums, and they describe their music as “supernatural shoegaze.” Yes, please!