Let the boomers keep their recent Woodstock anniversary, their hazy
memories. Psychedelia has left them behind, residing now in bands like
Spiral Beach. On their third release, The Only Really Thing,
this Toronto-based quartet serves sugary jolts with
frosty-icing-coloured imagery. But there’s nothing artificial about
them. The album opener, “Battery,” establishes the nocturnal motif,
with its line “fall asleep with the TV on.” The songs that follow befit
the dreams one has bathed in the tube’s blue light. Among the best of
this excellent lot: the weird drone of “Raising the Snake,” the
psychedelic balladry of “Orange,” the rapid-fire rhythm of “May Go
Round (In a Mania).”
This article appears in Sep 17-23, 2009.