The secret machines: Now Here Is Nowhere

Reviewed by RUSSELL BAILLIE

(Herald rating: * * * *)

The debut album by the band with a fraternal frontline and Texas-to-New York beginnings suggests they might well be this year's Black Rebel Motorcycle Club.

They're in a different retro-rock neighbourhood - more early Pink Floyd than Jesus and Mary Chain - but this trio know how to kick up a hell of an Anglo-artful rock racket, one that's seemingly more powerful than their personnel should allow.

Their approach is big on ominous bass-throb (especially on the opening tracks First Wave Intact and Sad and Lonely), heady guitar dramatics and stratospheric voices which, on the dreamy The Leaves Are Gone, can make them sound in a similar high orbit to the Flaming Lips.

Their psychedelic mix suggests echoes of everything from 70s Krautrock (Nowhere Again) to Echo and the Bunnymen (The Road Leads Where It's Led, Light's On) to Floyd (both Pharoah's Daughter and You Are Chains sound like escapees from Wish You Were Here). Lyrically, they're overwrought at times but it's hard not to get caught up in their grand, deep-rumbling vision.

Label: Reprise

Texas-via-NY trio do nouveau psychedelia