Bardo Pond - Under the Pines

  by Paul Waller

published: 3 / 4 / 2017

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Review

I tend to flit into and out of loving my collection of Bardo Pond albums but on receipt of ‘Under the Pines’ I realised that I haven’t heard anything new from them in over a decade. The last time I delved into their back catalogue was for ‘Ticket Crystals’ and that was eleven years ago. So that was then and as for today…Well… They are better than I have ever heard them before. ‘Under the Pines’ is a perfect fuzzy mess, much in the same fashion as 'Psychocandy', the debut Jesus and Mary Chain album was. Bardo Pond have simply replaced the over-ridden distortion with a warm buzzing guitar tone and some off-the-wall guitar play which at first can seem quite random and spontaneous and then, a few listens in, it can become the main focus of the song. It’s wonderful to hear a band that would appear to be primarily motivated to make the best songs they can for themselves and if we, the listeners are up for it, well, then we are welcome to join in. Listening to this for the past couple of weeks it’s been very apparent that the commercial possibilities here are pretty non-existent. It’s the better for it too. Case in point is the track ‘Out of Reach’. The opening solo is hooky as hell, yet seems to catch a breeze and simply float along until it’s no longer present. It’s a masterful display of lead guitar work yet there seems to be no ego-fuelled poses or rock and roll bullshit. The song simply absorbs everything around it in a psychedelic haze. Elsewhere, ‘My Eyes Out’ pretty much ignores a coherent structure in favour for a sonic melting mess with Isobel Sollenberger’s gentle vocal guiding the song wistfully through the murky haze. It’ll take a few listens sure but there is so much to love and discover on this album that, if you are up for wading through the smoke, you’ll be rewarded track after track. I for one won’t be waiting so long now for my next listening session with Bardo Pond. This is simply gorgeous.

Track Listing:-

1 Crossover
2 Out Of Reach
3 My Eyes Out
4 Moment To Moment
5 Under The Pines
6 Effigy

Band Links:-

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Bardo-P
http://www.threelobed.com/bardo/
http://bardopond.com/
https://twitter.com/lemurhouse

Label Links:-

https://twitter.com/firerecordings
https://www.facebook.com/Firerecords
http://www.firerecords.com/
https://firerecords.bandcamp.com/
https://instagram.com/fire_records/
https://www.youtube.com/user/Firerecor