Back in stock: Psych/Garage Rock

Review: Despite the fact that Hindsight Is 50/50 is the third album from Ghost Woman in 18 months, songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Evan Uschenko believes that this is the first album that “finally captures the true nature of the band”. Recorded mostly live in three days at Kerwax studios in Brittany, France, there is a confidence and assurance that feels built upon the 2022 eponymous debut and the follow-up Anne, If; overall, it carries a darker, denser feel compared to previous releases, though the sound is more akin to what the project was intended to sound like when it started in 2016. Its immersion is immediate, locking us in with the incessant riffing of ‘Bonehead’; sonically the album holds water in a warm, analogue soundworld, but with few digestible vocal melodies steering the tracks or easily giving up their meaning. Vocals come drenched in reverb and meaning is often suggested rather than explicit. The guitars are heavier and the vocals are less easily discernible, but Uschenko believes that “vocals are not important. We prefer to not be understood."

Review: One of the greatest things to happen to the vinyl industry, the beloved Australian rock collective are a force to be reckoned with in terms of releases. For all their conceptual and experimental releases however, 'Omnium Gatherum' works exactly as prescribed - a latin phrase roughly translating to "just a bunch of stuff". The double LP is a collection of reworked unreleased material, as well as original music tacked on to boot - King Gizzard fans never have to worry about getting bang for their buck. Expect frenzied shredding, nu-metal cuts and the occasional synth-pop banger. The real highlight here is 'The Grim Reaper', a fusion of hip-hop and medieval instrumentation if you can believe it. Kenny-Smith's flow is no doubt influenced by the Beastie Boys era of hip-hop, a style being repopularised by the likes of Joey Valence & Brae. The album is a crazy patchwork of genres that feels not unlike watching your favourite movie in the form of a highlight reel.

Review: Dublin-based electro-rock four-piece MELTS are back with a stunning follow up to their knockout 2022 debut Malestrom. This is a band who know exactly how to draw the best out of their psych-leaning rock and fuzzy analogue electronics for a maximum energy rush, as perfectly demonstrated on the album's fiery opener 'Figment'. Recorded and produced with Gilla Band's Daniel Fox, the album explores themes of human interaction on a micro and macro level, and with a sound fit for massive festival stage grandstanding they're poised to bring together vast swathes of people for all manner of massive shared experiences.

Review: This a unique release that features a song that was released by two different bands during within the same year. The song 'Meshkalina' was by a psychedelic and prog band from Peru called Traffic Sound and then, soon after, by Latin duo Paco Zambrano and Reynaldo Murrieta under the name Paco Zambrano Y Su Combo. The latter version is more traditional and Latin while the Traffic Sound version is more psychedelic garage rock band-like. Two formidable and very different versions featured on limited splattered 7" vinyl.

Review: Much as it may surprise some, this isn't a new and wryly political band putting the climate crisis front and centre. Instead, Relatively Clean Rivers are a relatively poorly remembered band in the annals of mid-20th Century tunes, although digging a little deeper makes you realise just how much mythology and mystery surrounds this, the one album they gave to the world.

Headed up by Phil Pearlman, of The Beat of The Earth and The Electronic Hole fame, RCR takes you on a peyote-laced trip into the Californian desert to explore more experimental, dream-like ends of 1960s folk rock 'n' roll. Vivid enough to ensure you can pretty much smell the hemp, it's crucial to note this isn't just another one of those stoned hippie albums. The quality of what's on this (originally privately released) record is so good it went on to inspire the likes of Wilco.

Review: Lux Interior and Poison Ivy, of Cramps fame, team up to deliver Leather Jackets and Diesel Smoke, a whopping 50-track compilation that documents their utmost personal favourite rock recordings, in the micro-veins of acid folk, rockabilly and psychobilly. We'll doff and eat our hats if both said punk legends' rising signs aren't Scorpio. With madcap performances from Donnie James with the Mighty Joe Houston Orchestra, Tall Tonio And The Mello-Dees, Chris Christian And The Chordaires, Elisabeth Waldo, Fred Katz and John Reedy and His Stone Mountain Trio among many more, this is a cavalcade of no-hit wonders, every last one of them a gem. Amounting to a contemporaneous account of the music that The Cramps heard and loved during their rise to notoriety, not to mention the lesser-known music that would've graced the halls of New York's CBGB club, of which they were favourite performers.