Pond has released a brand new album, Stung!, and it’s a squelching doozy
Pond’s discography brings to the coalface an eclectic array of influences, from Moses Gun Collective, to Ariel Pink, Cage The Elephant, Night Moves, Dumbo Gets Mad, and Babe Rainbow. What sets Pond apart, though, is that it never fails to retain one foot (or toe, perhaps) in the distinctly ‘classic rock’ camp – with a head-bow to giants like Bruce Springsteen or The Rolling Stones. And yes, the wry, mysterious and eccentric frontman, Nick Allbrook, even moves like a mini Jagger on stage; full of physicality and surrender. He’s like a psychedelic Rumpelstiltskin, though – as proven on Pond’s new album, Stung! – Allbrook can himself spin gold from thin air.
Much to the band’s credit, its genre-posture is somewhat bucked on Stung!, which draws influence from the R&B and disco spheres. Just have a listen to the dancy single, So Lo, on which one can easily imagine Prince singing – an artist who Allbrook let slip a partiality for, when he selected a scented prayer candle from the Diamonds and Pearls era in a 2019 episode of ‘What’s In My Bag?’ Perhaps in the transcendental, flickering light of that waxy merch, Allbrook dreamed up this homage, So Lo; all taught with groove, overflowing with funk and busting with toppy rhythm guitar.
The other single, Neon River, is again that foot of Pond’s which always finds a hold in its ancestry – offering deference to traditional psychedelia, such as early Pink Floyd or 70’s Tod Rundgren. Nevertheless, there is always that inimitable scent of brash and juicy, fuzzy-rubber-gumption, which intermittently punctures a tranquil, Empire Ants-esque motif. Here is the LP’s entry point for fans of The Flaming Lips or Led Zepplin.
The album’s eponymous single, (I’m) Stung!, meanwhile, is a bone-toss to the archetypal Pond fan. It is an immediately catchy head-bop, landing triumphantly from outer-earth orbit on two feet, fists on hips – with some Harrison-esque slide guitar, to boot. It’s the shimmering homerun of the project: just imagine My Sweet Lord on psilocybin.
Other tracks worth a mention on this mammoth triple LP include the 8-minute eargasm that is Edge of the World Pt.3 – the final installation of a song-trilogy begun on Pond’s electrifying, forth studio album, The Weather – featuring a mind-melting guitar solo from Dungen’s Reine Fiske; as well as O, UV ray, which Allbrook says borrows its DNA from Beetlebum by Blur.
Looking back on the Perth-based outfit’s origins, Pond is an offshoot of the oft-imitated Tame Impala; Albrook was their former bassist. The world-dominating darling of contemporary rock music that it is, Tame needs no introduction, and has – with its Midas touch – hatched other great acts from its lineup, including Gum (fronted by Tame’s multi-instrumentalist, Jay Watson), and Barbagallo (Tame’s stand-in drummer, the eponymous Julien Barbagallo).
These bands, along with Beach House, Garbanotas Bosistas, King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard, Spiritualised, Melody’s Echo Chamber, MGMT, Temples, and Ty Segall – or, at the more digital edge of the spectrum, Animal Collective/Panda Bear – comprise the bold frontier of neo-psych music (though some have retained a better claim than others).
This genre-wave largely started gaining energy in the late naughties-to-early-2010s, and reached its peak in 2015 when Tame’s Currents came crashing against international shores. It was the outfit’s first top-ten album in their native Australia, as well as its first top-ten in the UK. In the US, it peaked at number 4. By that point, it was obvious that neo-psych had fully punched into the mainstream, and though today the wave has lost some force in popular circles, it is still highly influential – having paved the way for Pond’s illustrious and unanimously-revered career.
Sadly, Allbrook missed the crest of Tame’s fame, having been ejected from the band in 2013, just after the release of its second, phaser-filled studio album, Lonerism – by reason of needing to ‘screw his head back on’. The reader may extrapolate from that whatever seems fit. Fortunately, the episode never became a stain on Allbrook’s character – rather, the neo-psych community ‘martyred’ him, and the mystique only grew. After 2018, with the release of The Weather, Pond’s stature was in full-bloom.
So Allbrook earned his stripes and picked up the requisite battle scars, just as the best psychedelic rockstars did (think Jim Morrison, Syd Barret) – doggedly refusing to be charmed by the bright lights of super-pop stardom, as, some might argue, has Kevin Parker. Here goes a nod to Parker’s divisive collaborations with A$AP rocky, Travis Scott, Kali Uchis and Mark Ronson.
As the frontman of Pond, Allbrook carries that flickering, neo-psych flame forward – a pilgrimage that has yielded huge moments for guitar music, like the rainbow-melodied hit, Paint Me Silver, which amasses 50 million streams on Spotify, and sounds as though it was dug up, fully formed, on another planet. Also worth checking out is Daisy, of Pond’s fifth studio album – a tribute to Australia’s climate-ravaged, sacred island state of Tasmania.
Looking down at Stung! from one thousand feet, it is clear that the album is a project made by people who have done their homework. When it comes to the music history that helped birth it, Stung! is supremely self-aware and poised. It is retrospective and at the same time contributes something new to the conversation around the relevance of today’s rock music, and the political statements it should make.
All hail Pond - the underappreciated Prince of psych-pop!
Comentários