Babe Rainbow return with ‘Acid & Honey,’ their seventh studio album, available to hear in full below ahead of its official release on July 16 through Eureka and AWAL.

The 11-track album began with recordings made on an op-shop acoustic guitar aboard a houseboat in Amsterdam before being completed with producer Kyle Mullarky at his Malibu ranch. The unusual journey suits a record that moves freely between the band’s familiar sunlit psychedelia and elements of country-pop, funk, hip-hop rhythms and harder rock.

The previously released ‘Polymuscalsaccharide,’ ‘Waterfall’ and the six-minute title track offered early glimpses of its loose, groove-led approach, but the full album reveals a wider range, from the easy movement of ‘Mangoes’ and ‘Dream Gasoline’ to the closing ‘Wisteria.’

When we spoke with Babe Rainbow about ‘Changing Colours’ in 2021, they explained that the songs had “really absorbed our surroundings.” That observation feels particularly relevant to ‘Acid & Honey,’ a record shaped between an Amsterdam houseboat and the Californian landscape. In our 2023 follow-up, Angus Dowling added that “no genre is safe when it comes to the records we get.” The new album carries that same open-ended attitude while remaining unmistakably Babe Rainbow.

A limited Impressed Recordings edition is pressed on 180-gram black-and-gold pinwheel vinyl and housed in a euro-style card sleeve with gold-foil embossed detailing. Only 250 copies have been produced, each with a numbered obi strip.

Headline photo: Jordan Malane

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