BEVIS FROND - Horrorful Heights 2LP

The album's range is wide but sharply defined. "Draining The Bad Blood" channels the classic Bevis Frond mode of melodic guitar pop-cut from the same cloth as longtime fan favourites later covered by Teenage Fanclub and The Lemonheads. "Space Age Eyes," a concise nine-minute odyssey, nods toward the transcendental explorations of '70s electric Miles Davis, complete with a blistering solo from Simmons and rhythmic elasticity from Pearce.

The sitar-laden title track, written off-the-cuff while Saloman half-watched a football match, drifts through incense-hazed psychedelia with layered vocals and tumbling tablas - an affectionate echo of the head-shop mysticism he has toyed with throughout the band's history.

Elsewhere, "Mossback's Dream" splices lysergic leads with the propulsive energy of '80s American hardcore, forging a hybrid that feels both timeless and entirely its own. Additional highlights include the Byrds-tinged "Buffaloed," the swirling narrative freeze-frame of "Silver Insects," and "That's Your Lot," a rapid-moving burst of melancholic euphoria and one of the record's most immediate songs.

Though unmistakably eclectic, Horrorful Heights presents a focused portrait of The Bevis Frond in 2025 - vital, tuneful and unburdened by nostalgia.

FFO: Dinosaur Jr, Guided By Voices, Lemonheads, Teenage Fanclub, Elliot Smith, Juliana Hatfield, Pavement, Neil Young.