For those as yet unacquainted with Bret Constantino's learned brigade a brief peruse of this here internet will throw up one ubiquitous, if inappropriate adjective branding the band 'psychedelic', 'psych' or some superfluous variant thereof. Not only has 'psychedelia' now become a poor and ultimately bastardised imitation of its former self (oft perpetuated by some equally extraneous reference to the Nuggets: Original Artyfacts comp) but it is little more than a remiss term batted about with ill-understood whimsy, consequently employed to describe anything that's in any way swirly and/ or faintly hallucinatory. If a record may conceivably sound so. In terms of elicited sensation however there's certainly a narcotic effect to this one. Thus although there's the odd point of contact over the tracklisting of Spine Hits (the woozy interlude to opener Stivey Pond or the sprightly staccato jolt of the Unknown Mortal Orchestra-ish V.O.G. for instance), they're snuggled up with hirsute chested, almost bucolic wild and irrevocably western Americana. Indeed were Poor Moon endowed with a little less facial bristle and a lot more limbed brawn they may have wound up unravelling the stirring melodies and harmonies of Boat Trip or Still Breathing.
However to even incorporate the aforesaid and extensively arraigned 'genre' here is to pollute both assessment and artist as Tame Impala this most indubitably ain't. For although She Rex is translated more accurately into transatlantic take on The Verve than the glam eulogy its title may intimate and Creature recalls The Datsuns in atypically sedate mood Spine Hits is a strikingly accomplished effort that, like a runaway freight train tumbling down moderate incline, grows in speed and stature as it trundles through the tracks. From the slow-burning passion of Deep War to the watery acoustic flow of Siouxsie Blaqq, moments of elaborate pulchritude are far from few and ought to astound enough to strip away that ill-conceived epithet like acid corroding unwitting taste buds.
