Now this is something heartening to hear; classic sounds done differently. Imagine psychedelic pop music, straight from the 60’s and 70’s, not sounding that different, but somehow modernised. It’s a strange journey.
‘Hello-hello’ is fairly straightforward – it’s Supergrass (them again – have they subtly become the most influential band from the Britpop era?) doing a Beatles medley. It’s very steeped in the past, complete with girls with long brown hair and big blue eyes, but it strays away from being straight imitation by having lots of personality, without it seeming staged.
‘Coming Through You’ sounds like it was recorded in a tin can underwater. It’s at times a lively, rocky number, with formidable solo’s and Stones quality verses, but then it slips into dreamy pop so effortlessly you hardly notice the shift. It’s that they’re trying to be many different types of retro guitar music all at once which makes the experience so compelling. It sounds good, but were this style to continue throughout the EP, you’d probably lose interest. So it’s good news that there is much more to The Transpersonals than that.
‘Silver Star’ breaks the mould somewhat; it sounds like an upbeat Velvet Underground, with some layered, melodramatic opera playing out over the top. It makes me long for the halcyon summer days of times that existed before I did. It’s quite a ghoulish song, quite unlike anything I’ve ever heard before. Just a few modern tweaks and effects is all it takes to revolutionise the past effectively – it’s amazing the impact a keyboard can have.
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‘Twenty Twelve’ is M Ward on LSD, being chased around a city by an angry band of musicians. It sounds like adrenaline, becoming increasingly claustrophobic as it heads towards a heart-stopping conclusion, not dropping the pace at any point. It makes you sit up and take notice, the wall of noise that develops, again so effortlessly. It’s a fucking amazing tune.
This is an EP worth getting involved with. It’s music that you can believe it, and although the past is stamped all over it, it’s a past with a great future. A truly unpredictable proposition, and I can’t wait to hear more from them.
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