By: Rich Buley
New Candys | website | facebook | bandcamp |
Released on March 16, 2015 via Picture In My Ear Records
New Candys, the Venezian 4 piece (I promise you that there will be total abstinence for the entire review from any puns making reference to their geographical origin e.g. “It doesn’t float my boat”), make 2 interesting protestations about themselves. Firstly, with an alternative take on the eponymous album title, and the confident absence of a question mark, they seemingly claim their 2nd long-player to have healing properties. We will see. Next, they describe themselves on their Facebook page as 33.3% Rock, 33.3% Roll and 33.4% Psychedelia. Now, there is certainly nothing wrong with either their Mathematics or their sense of humour, but a description ever so slightly accentuating their apparent ability to alter perceptions and expand minds? Well, fortuitously enough, we are currently in the business of writing a review of their new album, so we have the perfect opportunity to judge New Candys’ psychedelic powers for ourselves.
A large amount of words have been written already about the new wave of so-called ‘Psych’, and so I therefore feel entirely justified in writing some more. Just about any Artist that exhibits the merest hint of reverb, or might have a tendency to partly swirl, seems to see them labelled as ‘Psych’ in the current climate. This has given rise to a broad, diverse and thriving sub-genre, but is probably also another example of unrelated music being lumped together by a misused term.
‘Psych’ bands with a foundation in Noise, Drone, Ambient, EDM, Electronica, Blues, Folk, Grunge, Stoner, Doom- they’re all supposedly out there. But no matter- the discussion of whether that is right and good or lazy and wrong is for another day. New Candys, as we know already, are fundamentally a rock and roll band, and on New Candys As Medicine’ they do both in abundance, surrounded in a fair degree of fuzz and an oh so inviting darkness.
With original Loop drummer/producer John Wills on knob twiddling duties, and 2 members of the band also making up Mexican mind benders Lorelle Meets the Obsolete’s live line up, New Candys are certainly keeping the right company to brew up a right old Psychedelic hoedown. Beginning with ‘Thrill or Trip’ (now there’s a choice), New Candys commence the healing/expanding process immediately. It starts off with an almost Rockabilly guitar riff before galloping away and reminding me instantly of early Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, which is an excellent thing indeed, with Fernando Nuti’s vocals heavily effected, and surrounded by a gathering storm of echo laden guitars, all underpinned by some pounding, speeding percussion and a throbbing bassline. It’s an impressive start.
‘Song for the Mutant’ is very much lighter and poppier in tone and demonstrates that New Candys are perhaps as much in thrall to The Velvet Underground and the 1960s as they are to Spacemen 3 and their own particular sonic voyages through the 1980s.
The distorted, fractured riffs of ‘Patent Medicine’ follow, and this is not the only track on the album that has one imagining how huge New Candys might sound live, before lead single ‘Dark Love’ enters proceedings with a deliciously menacing, buzzing guitar lead, that fills my head with a hundred reasons to smile, as all good Psych should.
‘Aphrodite in Leather’ is New Candys displaying their rock 1/3, their bleakest and most wasted, while ‘Overall’ is one big hairy slice of leather clad noise rock, and is utterly fantastic. If you don’t feel the need to turn it right up when the 2 minute outro kicks in, then you are simply not taking the right medicine.
‘Bones on Fire’ is an acoustic led, Doors infused 2 minute ditty, leading to ‘Mess’, which is far from it, and again brings to mind the sound of BRMC at the peak of their powers.
‘Jolly Pan’ joins the earlier ‘Song For The Mutant’ in having more in common with the frothier, more commercial side of what seemingly passes for the new wave of Psyche, and a band like Temples, than the frazzled wig outs of contemporary bedfellows like Hookworms. But panic not. New Candys finish in some style, with the blasted, distorted rockabilly of ‘Endless Deadline’ again providing the sort of exciting, multi-layered, fuzzed up climax that surely all tracks should end with.
Not afraid to wear their influences clearly on their sleeves, when New Candys crank it up they glide above the origin of their parts, and a drop more of the harsher stuff on future releases could see this Italian band fully live up to that psychedelic, medicinal billing.
