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Album Review

The Left Outsides
And Colours In Between self-released CD-R

Article written by Ged M - Aug 1, 2007

I love this record for its melancholy end-of-autumn-pull-your-coat-tighter-around-you feel. Arising from the ashes of the Eighteenth Day of May, the Left Outsides have maintained that band’s fascination with folk-rock and psychedelia but added their own imprint. Their songs have a glacial exterior which eventually melts to reveal a glowing heart, smouldering with a childlike passion for secret gardens, lighthouses in winter and affairs that are only finally consummated after death. This is ethereal, introspective and largely acoustic, its American influences inflected with a touch of very English whimsy: the record ends on the sound of Big Ben’s chimes and Alison reciting a sly Dorothy Parker poem.

Though they’ve developed their own sound, the songs have a welcome variety: ethereal Nico-esque folk music (‘Neon Rainbow’) is followed by wistful Barrett-style psych-pop (‘The Chameleon’) and an introspective drone-pop sound (‘A Kingdom of My Own’) that would neatly hang on the 'nu-gazing' hook that journalists have recently invented for the sons and daughters of shoegazing. The two well-chosen covers also have their own dark radiance: ‘Glad It’s Over’, originally by San Francisco psych outfit The Living Children, has an end-of-Summer-of-Love melancholy feel while Mark sings the Thirteenth Floor Elevators’ ‘Splash One’ with a contemplative air until Alison’s cello zaps the mood with huge sweeps of sound.

‘And Colours in Between’ is an album of gentle but robust psych-folk, its feelings burning quietly but fiercely, getting brighter and hotter the darker and colder it grows outside. One of the best records I’ve heard this year.

Links:
http://www.theleftoutsides.com

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