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GIANT ON THE BEACH
(Rainbow Quartz)
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Clearly infected with a retrovirus (what would you expect from a band who lift their name from John Lennon’s character in How I Won the War?), this Jersey quartet continue to show an unflagging devotion to all things 1967. Beginning with "Astral Man," a roistering rocker with the frenetic guitars of Kristin Pinell and Rick Reil swirling over Kurt Reil’s pile-driving Who-ish drums, Giant on the Beach delves into various (altered) states of (un)reality. In "I Believe," the singer searches for "a bridge to a world outside me now," because "then I’d get back somehow." In "Infinite Soul," our "unenlightened times" are "so empty inside." In "Realities," "I don’t know what is real in your reality." In "Sight Unseen, "You see the frame but miss the picture/You’re a seeker with blind eyes." Sure, Pete Townshend plotted this cosmic trajectory generations ago — his "The Seeker" could find a place here — but the Grip Weeds come on in their own earnest fashion, and for all their hifalutin themes, there’s no dearth of melody or crunchy musicality. Hey, if you dig the Hives or the Vines or any number of the current crop of neo-garage bands, then you should have no problem losing yourself in the Weeds’ neo-psych. In its own limited way, Giant on the Beach is perfect.
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