Psych rockers Syd Arthur have quietly crept into my favourite rock band tier over the passed few years with their growers not showers. Each album has a unique tone and often aims to miss the usual tropes of popular riffs. Apricity follows the same pattern with lots of jaunty time signatures and epic tracks and continues to show why these guys are at the top of their game.
Symphonic “Coal Mine” opens the album with a start/stop first half before it bursts into a rolling rock anthem with pulsating strings, falling guitar chords and rolling basslines. Riffs and motifs are hidden throughout the track and they all pull themselves together for the finale and it’s a rousing opening to the album. “Plane Crash In Kansas” features organs and synths as fast waltzing beats swing their way through the shortest track before the double header of “No Peace” and “Sun Rays” display the very best of Syd Arthur’s radio sound. Both tracks shine with complex arrangements of guitars, keyboards and percussion. The choruses are catchy but still refuse to fit into a perfect 4/4 beat at all times. Both tracks make you feel alive but in very different yet euphoric ways and that’s the Syd Arthur way to rock.
“Into Eternity” showcases the anthem side of the band. It’s a slow burning, sparse arrangement that grows and expands its palette into a mass drive of sound and sirens into its epic title repetition. “Rebel Lands” showcases abstract guitar solo riffs as main hooks as the fast paced attacks of electric guitar come think and fast into your ears. I love how the entire track feels like it’s unfurling before you like a rolling carpet. “Seraphim” lets the more psychedelic keyboard take a central place in the riffs and codas whilst the choruses are the most direct and explosively rock centric of the album. It’s a personal highlight with the way how it pounds out the chorus and props to the vocals which shine in particular here as they shift between spooky otherworldly and then grungy rock in an instant. Instrumental “Portal” is an absolute blast too. It’s a rhythm rock explosion that rotates around a single chord and riff pattern and it gets heavier, more melodic and more complex over it’s three and half minutes. It’s the perfect antidote to the echo filled surfer highs of “Evolution” that spends its time warping high picked strings of the guitar alongside lush chords. Everything culminates in the title track. All we’ve heard before comes together to perfect with “Apricity” and the album ends on the highest note. It’s one of the bands best songs in their catalogue and showcases exactly why they are the kings of the kooky retro rock.
Dirty melodic psychedelic rock is difficult to scoop up and harness it’s power fully and yet each album sees Syd Arthur do it in a number of different ways. Apricity is just another example of how they do it to perfection and cements the band as a powerhouse in the world of rock.
Recommended Track : Apricity