We here at Smashin' Transistors like a lot of hiss in our Psychedelia. Something a bit fried where there's a sizzling and seared sound coming over the speakers. When it gets kicked around and becomes battered with a bit of pop-art abuse.
We also dig our space rock much more when it has covered in cosmic debris. Y'know, when wub-wub-wub pulsations are bewitching and narcotic and not simply a practice of hebetude.
We also don't mind things that some would call out at as shoegazey or compare to the Jesus & Mary Chain's Honey's Dead album as long as they've got blasts and some grind and not just sound like piles and piles of itchy blankets. Bonus points if it's a bit lo-fi but make the best of it out a need of necessity and not sounding like it was recorded on a low budget for some sake of gimmickry.
It seems if we were to get into a discussion of such things with Bristol, England's Total Rejection, an eye to eye agreement would be made on all the above.
Since the third point here applies to most of their album Wrapping Yourself In Silver Foil Won't Save You From The Blast, let's address the first two and then some.
While the Who made the claim of maximizing R&B, they also became a bit too much long winded and pompous by the time 1968 blew themselves into a direction they didn't seem to be too much on the year before. Freakbeat was long gone. Opera was way in.
The "pop-art" the Total Rejection seems to fancy is more along the lines of John's Children and the Creation in that respect. The album's opener, "The Legendary Orgasm (Everything In My Mind Is Groovy" is a not so subtle nod to the former in both title but as well as attitude. "Did You Fall Out The Window" is a sweaty three chord bouncer which laughs at mishaps of others and brings a burnt to a crisp attitude that may encourage even more reckless behavior. "Bending Spoons" serves up a similar bit of scorched brain rock but stewed even more in some kinda soul music rock-n-roll stew. Both of which are colored with the fluorescent splatters of the latter.
While such tracks show the band earthbound and rolling around in the dirt, when engines engage to leave the planet, the route to across the stars is mapped through clouds of space dust, which the band gladly inhales and exhales for particular exultations. Planets, where cavemen work on training space insects to send Krautrock morse code messages to distant lands, are discovered on "Licking Furniture (You'll Find Me On The Left)" and "Vampire Cat (Itches.)"
When the Total Rejection land their lunar module they know it is not a solid soil. It's a spongy surface like the one "Party Seven" seems to be built. It's wobbly and a bit dizzying but staggering around in the buzz that comes from it.
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