Alive 'n' Kicking. Gary War, New Raytheonport.

With Ariel Pink's Haunted Graffiti finally falling off the wall with last week's unspeakably atrocious Mature Themes, there's never been a more crucial time for Gary War to take up arms, preferably in the pacific form of the guitar. Having squinted to read from the same bittersweet acid tabs as Rosenberg in the basket case's touring entourage, New Raytheonport was reportedly – or so dreampop and lo-fi folklore would have us fantasise – written one inspired eve, the band also comprising sermonising erraticist John Maus having been refused entry into these fair isles. Verisimilitudinous or otherwise, any subplots slip from thought and drift off into irrelevance as over ten tracks, War enchants to emerge victorious.

Of course this one ain't exactly as new as it is novel: originally recorded and released in '08, this review only serves to honour the UK début of War's very first full-length. Yet it feels ageless and, at ten minutes short of Mature Themes, breezes by with a great ease, seeming to end just as its author applies just the right amount of pressure to really pique intrigue. The sultry, cosmically throwback pace to reprogrammed Alan Parsons Project shiner Eye In The Sky comes moments from its conclusion, segueing crisply into the exquisite wooze of Edge Of Mess. Trekkie if never particularly tecchie (New Raytheonport was committed to the churn of a seemingly somewhat rudimentary 8-track), there's some unearthly wonderment in amongst the galactic swabs of phased guitar; the groans obfuscated by an ever-present psyched-up echo; the all-pervasive rhyming surreality lyrical.

"It guides us/ It takes us/ It shows us light", War soothes as though hypnotised and with it inhuman on Cyclops Eye, a track which musically resembles The Residents jacked up on whatever it was that brought Duty Now For The Future into being. There's an almost soulful flounce to Bounce Four (think Shuggie Otis' Strawberry Letter 23 rewritten by Lockett Pundt), whilst Good Clues is as though alienated members of SFA and Blind Melon vacationing in the slosh of some '60s puddle. Please Don't Die blurs distinctions between teachings dub and the brand of atypical lo-fi mastery R. Stevie Moore may preach to spawn an alluringly out of sorts melancholy, and Clouds Went That Way proves a sportive jingle awash with lustrous harmonies and guitars what gleam like the disemboweled gizzards of a sonic kaleidoscope.

Back in '69 Edwin Starr infamously interrogated the listener – albeit rhetorically – as to what may be the benefits of war. "Absolutely nothing", was his predestined riposte although Gary War, conversely, is something of a priceless credit to the American avant-garde who may, I'd perhaps somewhat optimistically contend, now be accredited with such a reputation this migrationally delimiting side o' the pond.