LOVEBYRD – LOVEBYRD (Hairy Records LP, D/L).

Where arguably less deserving bands have been getting loads attention, one of this year’s best kept secrets must be German Neo-Psych duo Lovebyrd (Steffi Krauth and Mark Wernet)………….Following the well received release of their debut EP in January, Lovebyrd have been operating well below the radar creating a 10-track album that is a luminously psychedelic mix of Shoegaze and Psych-Pop that is guaranteed to extend your hazy summer well into the winter months. Six of the ten tracks here were previously released on the cassette only EP, but with the original tapes being taken halfway round the world for mastering at Poons Head Studios, Australia, (where other Neo-Psych artists such as Tame Impala and Melody's Echo Chamber have gone before them), they have been remastered and you can hear the improvement in sound quality which makes a big difference to the bands expansive sound. Influenced by The Byrds, Jefferson Airplane, Tame Impala, and Unknown Mortal Orchestra, this debut album from Lovebyrd shimmers with the glacial beauty of the best dreamy psychedelia with swirling soundscapes built with layers of guitars fuzzed up, distorted and with lots reverb blended with a timeless 60s West Coast inspired Pop Psych sensibility full of sun drenched pop hooks that are more than easy on the ear.

Our minds were completely blown when we heard the Lovebyrd EP several months ago and the initial fuss about this band was fully justifiable………the six tracks from that release still sound as stunning as when we first heard them. Opening with the tumbling guitars of ‘Spinning Around’ it is easy to imagine this is what the Sundays would have sounded like if they had been influenced by the swirling psychedelic sounds of the 1960s San Francisco scene instead of the kitchen sink dramas of the 1980s English Indie miserabilists like the Smiths. The tripped out ‘Nothing Is Real’ is a proper classic Psych Pop mind expander with dense layers of guitar and very much in the style of the best George Harrison compositions while ‘Shot From The Sun’ is still the best Lovebyrd tune to date mixing together the lysergic haze of Revolver era Beatles with Byrdsian psychedelic jangle pop in an explosion of vivid colour………..check the video here. There are four new songs on the album all of them brilliantly psychedelic and showing how far Lovebyrd’s songwriting has developed in the last year. ‘Floating Up’ is a brilliant slice of 60s sunshine Pop Psych with backwards guitars, mellotrons, acoustic guitars and ethereal vocals while ‘Floating Down’ has all the fuzzy warmth of a modern Psych Pop tune….. 60’s psychedelic pop with a modern twist has never sounded finer than this. The remaining two new songs, ‘Magnetic Levitation’ and ‘Black Sweet Sunny’, keep up the high standards set by the other tunes……….this is an album that surely must be destined to be a modern Psych Pop classic, there is an awful lot to love here. We have waited quite a few months for this record to land and we have certainly not been disappointed by these sweet sounds.

Lovebyrd’s debut album is out now and is available on a limited pressing on ‘Smoke White’ vinyl in a hand numbered edition of 300 from the Dutch label Hairy Records Bandcamp page here http://hairyrecords.bandcamp.com/. The album and the digital download are also available to buy from the Lovebyrd Bandcamp page here http://lovebyrd.bandcamp.com/.

THEE PSYCHEDELICATESSEN