Kikagaku Moyo - House in the Tall Grass
- by Jeff Penczak Release Date:2016-05-13 Label:
These Japanese psychedelic post-rockers have been swirling heads and frying brain cells for a few years now. Their third full-length shimmers its way into your synapses with ’Green Sugar’ and ‘Kogarashi’, sweetening your load with laid-back grooves midway between prime Dead and 70s British psych legends Help Yourself and Mighty Baby. A definite West Coast vibe (a la Spirit, Quicksilver Messenger Service, and more recently Jonathan Wilson) is sure to please heads of all generations. The latter even has a catchy walking melody straight out of Nirvana’s cover of the Meat Puppets’ ‘Plateau’.
‘Melted Crystal’ is another slow-burning thousand-yard-stare into a lava lamp, watching shapes and colours dissolve before your third eye, while the 10-minute ‘Silver Owl’ soars rather wobbly around the room, dodging shimmering guitar lines, dreamy, cotton-mouth vocals, and a heavy-lidded vibe before exploding into Blue Cheer-styled pyrotechnics that’ll rattle walls, windows, and your neighbour’s patience!
The flickering twin guitar attack of Quicksilver’s John Cipollina and Gary Duncan permeates the stunning ‘Trad’ before an acid-dripping jam reminiscent of fellow Japanese psych legends Acid Mothers Temple & The Melting Paraiso, U.F.O. brings it on home. A joy from start to finish and a surefire contender for album of the year.
