Join The Dots

In the wake of a previous band that disintegrated after one critically acclaimed but unreleased (?) album, this Brighton five-piece has quickly risen to the top of the current psych-rock pack. This album (TOY’s second) splits the difference between perfect pop and electrifying psych, and the music never ceases to rivet. On a plane with Tame Impala, The Horrors, The Chameleons, the best shoegaze. This is righteous. Five meows and lots of exclamation points. Honestly, every track is superb, but 4 just kills it. No FCCs detected.

1. (7:09)—Instrumental. Medium-slow, sedate, eminently danceable. Spacy synths, insistent bass. Rides on one note. Car-chase psych.
2. (4:43)—Mid-tempo. Swirling, jangly, jammy dream pop. Gorgeous.
3. (4:11)—Mid-tempo. Heavier but still gauzy. Deerhunter-ish.
4. **(7:59)—Fast. A trippy pop song embedded in a kraut-psych-noise odyssey to hypnotic heaven. YES!!!
5. (5:04)—Mid-tempo. Fuzzy, sugary, poppy. Trippy coda.
6. (4:33)—Medium-fast. The poppiest song. Warm guitars, shoegaze textures.
7. (4:05)—Fast, driving. Restrained first half, noisier second half. RIYL Captured Tracks.
8. (4:09)—Medium-fast, slick. Liquid guitars. Soft, fluttery synths.
9. (5:09)—Starts as a heavy medium-slow plod, speeds up and rides the motorik spaceship. Heavily processed vocals.
10. (4:07)—Starts slow, skyward, particularly reminiscent of Tame Impala. Like the previous track, this speeds up halfway through.
11. (9:53)—Medium-fast. Starts in lush krautrock mode. Shifts gears four minutes in, builds in intensity and rides into guitar paradise.