Uncategorized

Pretty Lightning – ‘A Magic Lane of Light and Rain’ (2015)

May 28, 2015

Pretty Lightning – ‘A Magic Lane of Light and Rain’ (2015)

More crunchy, bluesy psych on the German duo’s fourth effort. The lo-fi recordings and minimalist approach (how much can you squeeze out of drums and a guitar?) may offput listeners seeking a fuller, more polished sound, and several tracks do meander aimlessly seeking something resembling tuneage – think of those endless Grateful Dead “Space” jams.


Highlights include the Sabbathian sludge of ‘The Rainbos Machine’, the demented slide runs on the eerie ‘Graveyard Howls’, the swampy, waterlogged calliope on ‘Marble Moon’, the superfuzz bigmuff pedal-to-the-metal distortion of ‘Woodlands’, and the hallucinatory instro ‘Hypnooze’ bear up under repeat listens. Even the head-drooping, junkie nod ‘Moonshine Blooze’ bears more than a passing resemblance to vintage Warlocks and Brian Jonestown Massacre.

Come to think of it, the deeper I get the stonederer I become, until somewhere around the beginning of “Side 2” (‘A Gift From A Bone To A Bell’), I’m pretty primed and ready for liftoff. As Woody Allen suggested in Annie Hall, we’re “achieving total heaviosity”.

Still, I can’t help thinking I’m listening to the local teenagers making a somewhat incoherent racket in the garage next door. In other words, if Wayne & Garth (cf. Wayne’s World) formed a psychedelic garage band, it might sound like this. It definitely sounds like the guys probably had more fun making this noise than you will listening to it.

– Jeff Penczak


Pretty Lightning – A Magic Lane of Light and Rain (Cardinal Fuzz/Sound Effects, 2015)

Leave a comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *