Psychid

Debut album from Oxford band Psychid. Sounding like a re-invention of the early 70s Canterbury scene with modern production and influences - they play word association football and soar into the stratosphere with rich textures of sound.The production is perfect, lush with guitar, synth, and vocal power.

Split Lip Sucker is a great opening track with it's post-psychedelic celebration of a grey day with barbs enough to flay the skin. Digging For Victory has tasty synthiser lead, a jazz-funk bass sound, and ends up like a mixture of Human League when they were avant-garde mixed with their later pop sensibility - it's released as a single in August. Everything She Is takes more from Joy Division (or more precisely, early A Certain Ratio) but adds such beautiful orchestration that you can just sit back and enjoy the ride.

I guess the Oxford connection is fairly prominent as they do display a heavy Radiohead influence at times (on the weaker tracks). If Radiohead's more upbeat crown is up for grabs than Psychid are well-qualified to snatch it. There's a suggestion that they have yet to find their voice - they display so many influences (real or imagined) rather than just their own . I haven't found the killer track to push them to national prominence yet, but the walls of Jericho are already shaking - play that guitar a bit louder and they could be tumbling before you head out into the desert.