Pure Joy - Bang Flower

In a week which Andy 'Thunderclap' Newman died and his band’s iconic 'Something in the Air' is receiving a bit of play on the radio, you wonder whether It might not have been written knowing that the Wirral’s bracing climate would one day spawn some right clever buggers. First we had The Coral, then Hooton Tennis Club, and now this lot with their thoughtful pop-psych to direct some light and colour to what can sometime seem a rather dense and monochrome nu-psychedelic scene.

Bang Flower is typified by washes of sound layered on top of traditional constructs drawn of myriad influences. The production seems a deliberate if perhaps over-exuberant simulation of altered consciousness. Our boys are clearly neophytes of The Cult of John Lennon (three stages removed) – I bring to your attention Exhibits A (“Eight Fifty”) and B (“Don’t Do It”) m’lud, with their crying guitar and nasal pinched vocals. “Turner Sky”, on the other hand, sounds like Bruce Springsteen’s “Dancing In The Dark” given the Andy McCluskey/minor member of MBV remix treatment. Which is a pity, as its fire underbelly and handclap rhythms has the makings of something altogether more satisfying. The single “Girl”, “Terrorize” with its gutsy fuzz guitar and bleached Beach Boys doo-wop, and spritely off-kilter instrumental “Theme From Peach Fuzz” provide enough evidence to suggest that Pure Joy have bags of potential and could be on a journey to somewhere rather special. For now though this is still work in progress. One to watch, perhaps