- Release Info -------------------------------------------------------------- -
Artist: The Fresh & Onlys
Album: The Fresh & Onlys
Label: Castle Face Records
Playtime: 38:52 min
Genre: Indie
URL:
Rip date: 2009-04-29
Street date: 2009-04-21
Size: 52.85 MB
Type: Normal
Quality: 180 kbps / 4410kHz / Joint Stereo
- Release Notes ------------------------------------------------------------- -
The Fresh & Onlys shambles barefoot through Summer of Love-style guitar and
tambourine jams, strewing lyrical oddities and flower garlands along the path
that leads, if not to where Syd Barrett lives, at least to Dan TreacyÆs
neighborhood. Led by Tim Cohen, ex of the underrated Black Fiction, and now
sometime supporter of Ty Segall, the band channels the zonked hippie overload
of the 13th Floor Elevators and the lo-fi whimsies of TreacyÆs Television
Personalities. Shayde Sartin and Wymond Miles, both of the extended Skygreen
Leopards family, join in for dense jangles of psychedelic guitar and
half-tuned, echo-canyon harmonies. A plurality of band members seem to have
worked with Kelley Stoltz at one point or another, and picked up a bit of his
funhouse pop aesthetic.
Lyrically, these songs are down to earth with none of the hearts and
unicorns-style excesses of typical 1960s-influenced compositions. Things do
turn a bit twee with ôImaginary Friends,ö a song in the Barrett fey pop
tradition, though itÆs worth mentioning that the lyric is ôI donÆt have many
imaginary friends / but if I did I would live with them until the very end.ö
Notice the ôifö û even when Cohen turns fanciful, even when he imagines
madness, he remains grounded in the real world. Later, he turns the very
positive phrase, ôWhatÆs good for the body is good for the mind,ö into a
psych-redolent, reverb-shimmering chorus. This is a healthy, balanced kind of
tripping, all 1960s excesses viewed through a practical prism.
Production on this self-titled debut is rough and echoÆd, giving
guitar-vamped sing-alongs like ôShattered Moonö a mod, Pebbles aura. Squint
sideways, and you could easily imagine these tracks turning up in a jumble
sale crate, day-glo album art cracked and dog-eared from years of storage.
Not that thereÆs anything wrong with that. ôFeelings in My Heartö swaggers
unsteadily on a giant Spector beat, its
everyone-together-if-not-exactly-in-tune chorus swelling, its surf-psych
guitars criss-crossing in paisley anarchy. Spooky menace lurks in the
cavernous echoes of a good number of these songs. ôEndless Love,ö which is
not a song from the Brooke Shields movie, drives as hard and slantwise as a
Michael YonkersÆ song, breaking into group ôna na na na nasö that have no
intention of taking a sad song and making it better. ôI looked inàthe abyssàI
saw him,ö sings Cohen on the teeth-rattling, maniac-surf, shout-along ôI Saw
Him,ö and you remember how psychedelia can turn scary in the right hands.
Yet even when itÆs a bit ominous, this Fresh & Onlys debut is pure tie-dyed
fun, a guitar-strumming, tambourine rattling ramble through Nuggets-land that
never sags into nostalgia.
- Track List ---------------------------------------------------------------- -
01. Feelings In My Heart ( 2:57)
02. Fog Machine ( 3:14)
03. Endless Love ( 2:02)
04. I Saw Him ( 2:36)
05. Imaginary Friends ( 1:40)
06. Peacock and Wing ( 3:17)
07. Nuclear Disaster ( 3:14)
08. Only One I Want ( 2:11)
09. Shattered Moon ( 3:03)
10. On The Verge ( 2:40)
11. Let's Hang ( 2:36)
12. The Mind Is Happy ( 3:13)
13. Love & Kindness ( 2:24)
14. Arm's Advice ( 3:45)
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