Thursday 27 August 2015

Serpent Power - Serpent Power [2014], album review



Reincarnation

Not to be confused with David Meltzer’s Serpent Power actually from the late 60s, this is an album in two parts: first, the opening three tracks – Dr Lovecraft’s Asylum, The Man Who Shrunk the World and Lucifer’s Dreambox - second, the other nine on this 2014 album.

That opening trio is more expansively psychedelic in its reflection of a late 60s sound with Beatles-esque harmonies and Martin orchestrations, Lucifer’s Dreambox more in the Jefferson Airplane arena, and it is gloriously effective in re-creating that sound. The rest is more pop songish but from that same era in its reflecting.

Not surprising that the album holds up this mirror to the past, its two players being Ian Skelly of The Coral, a band steeped in the harmony-driven music of the late 60s/early 70s, and Paul Molloy of The Zutons, a band that indulged more in the rockier echoes of those times. It is an enjoyable reincarnation in all senses.




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