More than three decades in, and after a six-year gap, the London now trio return with a fabulously eclectic, esoteric ninth 19-track LP mixing psychedelia, Eastern classical music, poetic, jangly, jaunty indie pop, and more. Frontman Alasdair MacLean on guitars and vocals adds organ bouzouki, Mellotron, and various keyboards and beats to his repertoire and there’s oodles of classical strings and horns across the album with several shorter instrumental interstitial tracks all calls Radials and other oddball number such as the spoken word and modern classic number My Childhood, echoed back in the closing track The Village Is Always On Fire again read by Jessica Griffin. But of the songs more conventional, former Song of the Day the catchy Blue On Blue is an obvious standout, inspired by MacLean being lost in the woods with his son with a sound that has and Eels-esque quality, as well as the sunny, 60s psych of Claire’s Not Real offset by scary but eerie beauty of a sky lit orange by forest fires. As well as these, Lady Grey, the opener Fables of the Silverlink, the rhythmic energy of Dying In May, and the utterly gorgeous Stems of Alice. An entrancing album filled with dreamy, dark, eccentric, esoteric beauty. Out on Merge Records.
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