PSYCHEDELIC PORN CRUMPETS
Shyga! The Sunlight Mound (What Reality?/Caroline)
A psych rock band? From Perth? No way! Who would have thought of it?
Yeah, it’s not exactly untouched ground out west to ply your rock’n’roll with some lysergic overlay. And if you’ve been there for the inter-related Tame Impala and Pond, and any other bands from the petri dish which spoored them, you might already be chalking off Psychedelic Porn Crumpets.
(Or maybe it’s the name which has done that for you. But hey, don’t knock it: best breakfast dish, right?)
However, three long-players into a recording career begun with a two-part album in 2016, PPC legitimately long ago separated themselves from the “Perth sound”. If you were to go on the psych references you might suggest that PPC are at the less dreamy, more speedy/less dancing, more jumping end of this session.
A closer comparison, even though the Perth crew’s songwriting isn’t at the same level, is across the country in Melbourne’s King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard, or at least one incarnation of that band who seemingly change musical direction with every record. And not just because both bands have names that sound like they were conceived about four hours into a full-on session that day you bunked off the swimming carnival.
Mundungus rides in on a racing Purple-ish riff, the drums are solid beaters and the solo leans to Blackmore, but the energy is decidedly more Motorhead and the vocals don’t bother with high metal posturing, or fine-grained finesse. Sawtooth Monkfish locks you into a goggle-eyed stare, snapping your neck with its duelling guitars and relentlessness. The Terrors is a pummelling motor taking 18 wheels over you with the hint of something lighter in the cabin that is mostly obscured by the force.
Easing back a little, you might call Tripolassaur danceable, though it’s decidedly more head down stomping than head back grooving (with a guitar-as-technology sound that might inspire air synth as much as air guitar moves), Glitter Bug throws its hands up like it’s late ‘80s Manchester with a bit more beef on its torso, and Mango Terrarium is a sneaky little sunshine pop nugget hidden inside a racing car driven by Eddie Van Halen.
And then the album closes with The Tale Of Gurney Gridman double speeding its double lines into a proper helter skelter. But wait, that’s when it gradually shifts down gears through some hazy Syd Barrett-isms before drifting away past tangerine trees and marshmallow skies.
So, no you can’t really nail Psychedelic Porn Crumpets as straight out heavy and they’re never wholly bent trippy. But honestly, when something like Tally-Ho makes its blues boogie sprint right up to the grinding middle eight and then escape the vortex with a laugh, or Hats Off To The Green Bins gets its eyeballs spinning while still suggesting the band might still be wearing frilly shirts, velvet jackets and Cuban heel boots, that’s not the main question to bother with.
What you want to know is, one or two tabs?
That my friend is up to you. And your dealer. Or doctor.