You will probably have made up your mind of exactly how you think, less than forty seconds in to New Jersey Gracia People's latest album Nightcap at Wits' End. The band certainly don't waste any time in letting you know precisely what floats their boat.
This is ludicrously retro stuff, both in sound and sensibility. Round about 1972, I'd say, halfway through a joint, halfway through a Robert Plant soliloquy or a Jimmy Page solo. Or should that be Jerry Garcia solo. The band name themselves after him after all?
This is a record you absolutely have to buy into the legacy it draws on to 'dig'. Sorry, but that is exactly the word that you have to use in this particular case. Garcia People's buy the whole Tolkien, Dungeons and Dragons, gatefold sleeve package, lock, stock and barrel. There is really nothing that indicates that this record was made in 2020, except perhaps its production.
I'm not completely averse to this sound, though I found most of the conceits it dabbles in ridiculous, even at sixteen. Garcia Peoples are a trim and trained band, they pull off the arcane and odd guitar chord sequences quite masterfully. The lyrical stance is unashamedly wide eyed and awestruck. This is an album I find it easier to admire for its playing than its guiding principles.
The duelling guitars are fine, so is the glossy, spiralling atmosphere of the songs. The record has a smooth and silky warmth. But I couldn't buy into the whole vision because there is something I find essentially daft about it. It also doesn't particularly add to the rich heritage it mines. Merely prostrates itself in somewhat 'I'm not worthy' supplication at the altar of rock of the early Seventies.
This record will surely find a broad and appreciate audience. Probably among 70 year olds as well as those of 20. There were moments when it clicked into the kind of ecstasy that Television achieved during Marquee Moon. But for the most part it reminded me of Tull, Yes, Zep and Wishbone Ash rather more. I recommend it to devotees of that particular way of looking at the world.
I was reminded during my listening to this of nothing so much as the Patrick Fugit character in Almost Famous listening to his sister's record collection, eyes closed, mouth agape. Rather like that film itself Nightcap at Wits' End offers an attractive promise of pure escapism from the harsh realities of modern exiatance by virtual immersion in the comforting pleasures of the deep and distant past. But the vision that results never completely convinces. Or it doesn't convince me at any rate. I'll give it seven. OK then seven and a half
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