Psychic Ills – Hazed Dream (2011)
Opening on a jaw harp solo, this album follows a downtempo trend, featuring a plethora of unexpected and interesting elements. Beyond the jaw harp, you can hear an organ, a cabasa or wooden sounder, something similar to an alarm tone, and a shruti box. These elements add interesting tonal variation to the songs off of this EP and create an interesting sonic contrast to the guitars and bass that form a large portion of the soundscape.
Facebook, Bandcamp, and Apple Music pages of Psychic Ills
The Out Key Hole – Dreams in a Waking State (2010)
The debut record of The Out Key Hole transports you right into the late-60s garage and psychedelic movements. There’s definitely some hints of surf rock sprinkled about, layered in between organ melodics and some more traditional-leaning rock ‘n’ roll guitars. It’s an intriguing blend of these retro influences that blend into a unique, modern take on the genres.
Facebook, Bandcamp, and website of The Out Key Hole and their label
The Sundowners – Medicine (2014)
Blending gentle vocals with distorted guitars and thumping drumbeats, The Sundowners create an interesting dichotomy on their song “Back to You”. Instrumentally, I’m reminded of some late-90s and early-2000s garage and neo-psychedelia. The melodies float between the heavier drums while the vocals integrate themselves into the distortion, crafting a trippy flair.
YouTube, Facebook, Bandcamp, Instagram, X, Linktree, and Spotify pages of The Sundowners
Purple Heart Parade – A Minutes Silence at Weatherfield County (2018)
Far more neo-psych than the previous releases, this EP embodies the best aspects of modern neopsychedelia. The guitar is both a gentle guide through the music and a trippy propeller, while the synths accentuate the overarching mood and tone of the individual songs.
Facebook, Instagram, Bandcamp, YouTube, YouTube topic, and X pages for Purple Heart Parade
White Fence – Is Growing Faith (2011)
Leaning closer to garage rock with noted influences of jangle pop and slacker rock, Is Growing Faith feels like it could belong in the same club as the mid-60s Beatles releases. Jangly, surf-y guitars layer over eased drums and retro-ish vocals on some tracks, like “Growing Faith”, while other tracks, like “Enthusiasm”, feature some of the “harder” aspects of garage and slacker rock on them, like heavier, distorted guitars and fuzz behind the vocals.
Blogspot, Instagram, YouTube, Facebook, and Bandcamp pages for White Fence
Rancho Relaxo – Happy Friday Experiment (2012)
Taking the path of Space Rock more often than the neo-psych path, this release offers many intriguing elements. The inclusion of raspier vocals, blues rock influences, and instrumental intermissions create an interesting composition – the heavy front end is interrupted by this far airier, calm intermission that transitions to the bluesy and (at times) folksy midsection, which is than brought to the second intermission and the final section, which leans more psychedelic with heavier tones.
Facebook, Bandcamp, YouTube, Spotify, and Apple Music pages for Rancho Relaxo
Straight Arrows – R I S I N G (2014)
Covering the garage and garage subgenres spectrum, R I S I N G is chock-full of great Australian garage music. The guitars are uptempo and fuzzy, the vocal performance is energetic and compelling, and the bass and drums ground the sound without overtaking either the vocals or the guitar melodies.
Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, X, and Linktree pages for the Straight Arrows
The Murlocs – Tee Pee (2012)
This incredibly blues-y garage EP is a great example of how to fuse the two genres. Fusing genres by including harmonica and the blues guitars in the garage foundation was a fantastic choice – these two genres play off each other really well. The vocal performance leans more towards rasp than power on this EP, but it maintains a consistent raw energy throughout.
Website, Facebook, Bandcamp, YouTube, and Spotify pages for The Murlocs
The Holydrug Couple – Moonlust (2015)
Leaning much further into psychedelia and dream pop, this album takes on a far more floaty, ethereal feel than the previously mentioned releases. The majority of the layers, including the vocals, guitars, and synths, all seem to have a purposeful airiness or levity to them, and they’re firmly grounded by the drums behind them. The bass on this album is not all that heavy – it really floats between the guitars and the synths.
Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, Spotify, Apple Music, and Linktree pages for The Holydrug Couple
The Pynnacles – The Pynnacles (2013)
This album feels very reminiscent of true 60s psychedelia, though there is a certain quality that the lead singer has that reminds me very much of early rock ‘n’ roll singers. There are also inclusions of some riffs and chord progressions that remind me of surf rock music, especially in the track “Into the Stratosphere”.
Facebook, Bandcamp, and YouTube pages for The Pynnacles
The Blue Angel Lounge – A Sea of Trees (2014)
I was incredibly surprised by the inclusion of neo-folk influences in this album – the hammer dulcimer featured on the opening track, “Winter”, was an incredibly pleasant surprise. The entire album was actually filled with really interesting elements, particularly those that come from neo-folk, like the singer’s cadence, the inclusion of bass vocals as a grounding element, and a focus on acoustic guitar.
Website, Facebook, Soundcloud, and YouTube pages for The Blue Angel Lounge
Christian Bland & The Revelators – Losing Touch With My Mind (2013)
Leaning toward the heavier end of the psychedelic spectrum, this cover of Spacemen 3’s “Losing Touch With My Mind” is a direct contrast to some of the other releases on this list, particularly Moonlust. This song is firmly rooted in the psychedelic space, complete with fuzzy vocals and distorted guitars. More interestingly, the psychedelic instrumentation on this release is incredibly grounded. The parts where the guitars, in particular, end up veering slightly away from this heavier psychedelia, the sound doesn’t stray too far from the psychedelic root – these grooves often end up feeling like a brief improv more than a gear switch.
Bandcamp, Facebook, and YouTube pages for Christian Bland & The Revelators
The Cult of Dom Keller – The Cult of Dom Keller (2013)
Far more fuzzed out and distorted than any of the previous releases, The Cult of Dom Keller seems to wade pretty deep into the heavy psych waters. The overarching tone of the album is a fair bit darker and more morose than any of the previous releases, and it leverages the fuzzing and distortion of the instruments quite a bit more than the other releases.
Facebook, YouTube, Bandcamp, and Soundcloud pages of The Cult of Dom Keller
Dead Rabbits – The Ticket That Exploded (2013)
The Ticket That Exploded is the first release on this list to feature shoegaze influences on the tracks. While it has the shared elements for fuzzy and distorted guitars and vocals, it feels far lighter a fuzz and distortion compared to the previous release. The highlight of the album was the inclusion of the synth melodies on “It’s All In Her Head”.
Facebook, website, YouTube, Bandcamp, X, and Soundcloud pages for Dead Rabbits
Sisters of Your Sunshine Vapor – Spectra Spirit (2014)
Spectra Spirit by Sisters of Your Sunshine Vapor is a unique feature on this list since it both includes many elements that have been previously discussed, such as Space Rock, heavy fuzzing and distortion on vocals and/or guitars, organ, and grounding percussions and bass. The biggest highlight off of this record was the 3rd track “Howlers on the Roam” – the organ and the acoustic guitar build a really fantastic musical foundation for the vocalist to play off of.
Facebook, website, Instagram, Bandcamp, X, and MyLinks pages for Sisters of Your Sunshine Vapor
