Review Summary: Weirdo garage rock that remembers to breathe
When listening to the seventh Psychedelic Porn Crumpets album, one notices the production is a lot clearer than their high-energy garage rock usually allows. The wall-of-fuzz presentation isn’t as overbearing as on previous outings, allowing the more intricate guitar parts to come through and bring a little more coherency to all the moving parts that can get lost in the shuffle. The vocals also seem to be more prominent, occupying the same nasally tenor but don’t feel as nondescript thanks to an eccentric character getting to shine through.
While this would raise concern about the band losing its sharper edge, it gets to where their heavier components are arguably even more so. The opening “Another Reincarnation” sees its stoner foundation rocked by intricate noodling and periodic blasts while “March Of The Pax Romana” goes even further off-the-wall with jagged chugs and manic motormouth vocals thrown in the mix. A combination of warped effects and the declarative relatability of “Weird World Awoke” makes its upbeat jaunt another win, “Incubator (V2000)” has more easygoing textures above its driving bassline.
Even when the album is rounded out by the band’s usual batch of more melodic songs, they consistently settle into laid back psych territory as opposed to the more vignette compositions. “As The Hummingbird Hovers” and “Scapegoat” may be disorienting in their own ways, the former’s backmasked melodies and the latter in a gentle dream-state, but their relaxed executions are a welcome reprieve from the scatterbrained assaults. “Winter In Parachutes” also works as a light folk sway and it’s interesting to see the tug o’ war play with the echoing shreds on “Out The Universe Pours.”
Psychedelic Porn Crumpets’s discography has maintained a quality track record for about a decade now, but Carpe Diem, Moonman feels particularly inspired. As fun as the band’s fuzzy drive-by methods can get, one gets the sense that they really wanted to take their time with this one. Between the clearer production and more lingering songs, it feels like the songs get some nice chances to breathe even with all the jumps throughout. Anybody looking for more weirdo Gizzard rock is sure to get something out of this.
