Whilst fans may lament the departure of bandmates, Johnny Quaid and Danny Cash, most of us wouldn’t notice a thing, and why would we? Few of us have actually heard of them thus far and the fact they have replaced like with like in the form of new members Carl Broemel (guitar) and Bo Koster (keys) suggests it was always likely to be more a physical departure than either a musical or conceptual one. So there you have it. Much still is the same for anyone who cares to notice. Jacket lapel and lynchpin songwriter Jim James continues to generate lightly mystical and psychedelic, Flaming Lips-like vocal displays of fragile intensity and dazzling, nature loving theosophy and nowhere is it more apparent than on philosophical soul opener, ‘Wordless Chorus’ – gentle of voice, tricksy of beat and floaty of chorus. It’s not a spectacular icebreaker by any stretch of the imagination, but it sets you up just nicely for the jazzy Paranoid Androidisms of the ‘It Beats For You’ lament, the progressive time signatures of ‘Gideon’, the fidgety glam frequencies of the utterly marvellous ‘What A Wonderful Man’ and the cod-reggae falsetto of the quirky and cutesy ‘Off The Record’ – a perfect candy-floss preamble for the eerie circus freakery of ‘Into The Woods’ – and a musical revelation if ever there was one. The muscular ‘Anytime’ may recall the huge vocal excesses of an over excitable Roger Daltrey but by the time ‘Knot Comes Loose’ you’ve already been seduced by the sheer melodic, sunshine-loving, tie-dye wearing loveliness of it all.
It’s big, it’s beautiful, it’s bold and it’s actually about time you picked up an album by them. Prevaricate ye not.