Seeming to want to square the unlikely circle of Supertramp meets The Beach Boys, Albany, New York's Bruiser & Bicycle certainly have a lot of fun on latest album Holy Red Wagon.
It's 'throw the kitchen sink in' why don't you', stuff. Exhausting at times but certainly intriguing. Reminiscent of Elephant 6 bands such as Olivia Tremor Control at times, some wonderful melodic passages are sustained.
The Supertramp meets Beach Boys thing aside, the era Bruiser & Bicycle seem to hark back to most of all is '65-'67, Psychedelic Pop's Golden Moment, when outfits such as Spanky & Our Gang, Strawberry Alarm Clock and 5th Dimension appeared to be inventing new colours and for a moment it must have felt like anything was possible.
This is a riot of invention. Each track appears to try to outdo the last. This is not on first play a very 2023 sounding record but then again perhaps that's exactly what a record should sound like in 2023. This is not a time when conventional boundaries need apply after all. This works. And amazingly and surprisingly well.
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