You never really believed that patience was a virtue, did you. That’s just a stalling feature rolled out by people who can’t make things happen. And what’s wrong with the right now, anyway? Well, sorry kid, turns out you were wrong, they were right. Live with it. As proof I offer you dinky little Oxfam-shop urban-folk rag dolls Alfie and this, their fourth album. Only they aren’t exactly dinky little Oxfam-shop urban-folk rag dolls any longer. Not quite.
They gave almost everyone the slip after their first record, the disjointedly amicable ‘If You Happy With You Need Do Nothing’. The follow-ups, ‘A Word In Your Ear’ and ‘Do You Imagine Things?’ might have seen them become increasingly lucid, exploring California’s musical sunshine through folk of ages – seams were re-stitched, bagginess reeled in, no mistaking – but though there was agreeable ambling, and a few surges upward, people weren’t changed from looking the other way. Probably most importantly, there was no killer lead off single.
Step this way, ‘Your Own Religion’. A soaring rich, organic, extra choc-chip scoop of sweet, cascading psychedelia that feels like it might just carry on till it reaches an ocean of the stuff, which you could swim in till the end of your days. It’s part Flaming Lips, part British Sea Power, part The Charlatans, and every time is over far too soon. It is their best single and it has your undivided attention. The clincher is though that it’s not the only one. There is at least one other up to the same task, in the shape of the title track, a spacey organ romp of heavy harmony and free-spirited melody. And that’s not to mention a whole album of back-ups.
They still play guitars with the taste of campfires locked into the wood, they still give the impression of wherever their feet may be their heads are in the clouds, they are still headed up by the same distracted bumbling courtesy of Lee Gorton. But their horizons seem to have broadened immeasurably. ‘All Too Heavy Now’ has both the intense ethereal serenity of Joy Zipper and the playful guitars of Sonic Youth. ‘Wizzo’ has the wide-eyed character of ‘Parklife’ Blur, in an airier kingdom of fantasy, keyboards spilling down cloud-covered staircases. And whenever you think you’ve got your eye on them you’re blindsided by an unseen gust. If they’ve not matured they’ve certainly come of age. You can fully redeem that patience now.