This month a lot of good music has arrived from the United Kingdom. One of these is definitely There is only now. The sixth album by The Galileo 7 (in operation since 2009, they also have a few singles behind them) came out a few days ago (June 21st) for Damaged Goods Records , a label founded in 1988 with a really interesting catalog (advice to vinyl employees a look).
Allan Crockford (guitar and vocals), a militant since the 80’s in many groups, including The Prisoners as a bassist, had written some lyrics. So together with Paul Moss (bass and vocals), Viv Bonsels (keyboard and voice) and Matthew ‘Mole’ Lambert (drums and vocals, known as the busiest man in the garage-rock, also a member of the Baron Four and bassist in the The Embrooks ) gathered in Medway, musical land that also gave birth to Graham Day , James Taylor (both in The Prisoners with Allan) and Billy Childish.
The fact that all the band members sing in the latter work gives the album a truly engaging energy, which perfectly accompanies their style, a mixture of Psych-pop, Garage-rock and Freakbeat. Personally I didn’t know the band, but it immediately fascinated me.
There Is Only Now (with a fantastic surrealistic cover by Darryl Hartley) , composed of 12 tracks, opens with Everything is Everything Else and Too Late. The two songs begin with guitar riffs that immediately capture my attention. If the G7s have a veiled pop vein, there’s nothing negative about it. In fact the English 60’s and the psychedelia have more influence on the band and this means that their result is an explosive mix.
Next we find There is Only Now … slightly slower than the first two, with which the band closes this opening triptych, with the flavor of an intellectual manifesto. The band continues the charge with the following two tracks, Slipping Away and Let Go, before coming to the close of the first side, where we find The Word Look Different Today, slow, psychedelic, as sometimes the world is … but everything changes.
Side B opens with Looking Up and The Last Hour of Aldous Huxley (dystopian writer, who hoped for a better humanity) … there seems to be a renaissance. Thus, in the first, the Galileo 7 resume with their usual explosiveness, while in the second the psychedelia joins at a more exotic rhythm. In a moment, however, we return to England, with Crooked Smile and I Dreem of Sleep … two tracks with a very energetic beat flavor. Dandy in Aspic (this song I will listen to until I faint, which for the moment has not yet arrived), prepares us for the best (I’ve Got Theme Old) Microcosmic Blues (Again).
I can’t wait to have this album, with a really cool sound and a basic message that struck me a lot … It’s just now !!!