Slipping
under the radar a while back was the release of Salutations, the second album
by Berlin based New Zealand Psych Rock band Sun And The Wolf. An album worth
going back to discover, these nine cuts of excellent neo-Psychedelia continues
on from the explosive and overdriven rhythm and blues that their debut White
Buffalo boasted, while exploring darker realms of psychedelia and splashes of
neo-World sounds.
Firstly, don’t
be put off by the terrible cover artwork………with Psychedelia being as visual
medium as much as an aural one, Salutations sleeve gives off all the wrong
signals looking like the band are a bunch of twee Indie funsters and not a
fantastic 80s/90s Psych/Shoegaze influenced band, however you have to admit
they avoid all the usual Psych clichés with their choice of cover. Hidden beneath
a sleeve that most PsychHeads would skip past while flicking through the racks
in a record store, Sun And The Wolf have created an album that mixes together
taut, incendiary Indie Rock with a technicolour psychedelic swirl that evokes
such early 90s bands as House Of Love, Sun Dial, Levitation, Spiritualized and
the early psychedelic EPs from Verve as the band explore the darker realms of
fuzz driven psychedelia with catchy riffage and splashes of The Beatles´
lysergic era. It’s time to catch up with Sun And The Wolf……………Salutations
boasts some outstanding Indie/Psych tunes, from the epic groove of ‘Settle Down’,
the sleek Revolver period Beatles inspired ‘All We Need’, the dreamy ‘Ghetto
Drum’ through to the motrik pulse of ‘The Fisherman’ and the squalling
Psychedelic Rock of ‘Why Are We Not Fading’ before closing with the blissful ‘Never
Sorry’. Somewhat under-appreciated on its initial release, Salutations is a really cool
record that is well worth checking out.
Released by
the wonderful German label World In Sound, Salutations is still available in a variety
of formats…………the CD and vinyl versions are available from the usual outlets
and the World In Sound Online store (where there are still a few copies pressed
on orange vinyl available) while a digital download can be purchased from the
World In Sound Bandcamp page at https://worldinsound.bandcamp.com/album/salutations.
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