Earthling Society- Stations of the Ghost (4Zero Records)

 Fred Laird is back with another pretty damn cool record. I think that last one they made was really amazing so to top that was going to be a huge task. Oh yeah.. This is the band’s 6^th record. Here is what the band wrote on their web site: “Taking in themes of weird cosmic horror inspired by our literary hero Arthur Machen and the tales that surround the witch country that is our home county of Lankyshire”. It starts off with a short instrumental (title track) that is quite spacey and relaxing. Dark Horizons is very melodic, quite uptempo and driven by the spacey keyboards while the guitar is more in the background to start and then the voices come in (the part I am not sure I really like) and the band has short bursts of guitar, organ, and keyboard solos. A very cool psychedelic track with lots of dynamics. The Last Hurrrah is a 9 min track that takes things down after that intense song with acoustic guitar and some echoey vocals to start. There is a lot of  cool synthesizers on this track and it has a great psychedelic mix and really builds up with Fred playing a great electric guitar solo after 3mins. Child of the Harvest is over 14 mins and starts in the rainy home county of Lakyshire. Soon the rain stops though and the cool grooving track really takes off with strummed acoustic and electric guitar layers by Fred. Ian Wright plays a sax solo as well as this track really picks up pace and a lot of things are happening if you listen carefully as they bring the dynamics up and down and mix the synths and guitars up and down for a really awesome stereo psychedelic mix. The Halloween Tree is a short 3½ min track that changes the vibe quite a bit with some hand drumming and a really cool spaced out sound with an almost but not quite eastern vibe. Very psyched out and intense! Night of the Scarecrow is another long track at 13½ minutes and the heaviest stuff on the record and wow, what a beginning before it becomes more melodic and spacey. What an amazing track. This one totally blew my mind! Lola Daydream starts with a sitar drone and is a nice come down from that trip. This also ends this pretty amazing record. Fans of real psychedelic rock music with a melodic edge and lots of trippy stuff to listen to will dig this one. It should also be out on vinyl soon.

http://www.4zerorecords.co.uk http://www.myspace.com/earthlingsociety http://www.earthlingsociety.co.uk/