Spectrum Highs, Lows and Heavenly Blows

Working with guitarist and sometime vocalist Scott Riley, as well as regular collaborators Pete Bain aka Bassman from Spacemen 3 and Alf Hardy, Sonic led a new version of Spectrum into murkier waters with the low-key but quietly powerful Highs, Lows and Heavenly Blows. There's nothing like "How You Satisfy Me" and its immediate pop blast here, while the generally lighter and more gently spaced tones of Soul Kiss as a whole are mostly absent until the album's conclusion. There the wistful amble of "Don't Pass Me By" and the similarly minded "I Know They Say" help set up the great conclusion, "Take Me Away," as pristine a psych confectionery as there'll ever be, with the pace and delivery of the best lullaby around. Other inspiration comes in part from the freeform work on the first Experimental Audio Research releases, only here meshed, at least part of the time, with song structures. Subtle ones, admittedly -- "Undo the Taboo" makes for one heck of a minimal (to the point of almost non