If the swinging sixties-retro of the gas-guzzling ‘Setting Sun’ is anything to go by, The Aliens are throwing in more references than a final year dissertation on astro-physics, tipping more winks than a nodding dog and creating a kind of myspace traditionally reserved for aging hippies and zen-style motor mechanics. It’s like Dennis Hopper never got off his motorcycle. It’s like Jimi Hendrix never choked on his own vomit. It’s like The Doors went on to write folk records and like the acid never disappeared from the tab. Decked with spaced-out vocal harmonies the size of quantum theory, guitar solos the shape and density of a black hole and fanning, cosmic melodies, tunes like ‘I Am Unknown’ and ‘Robot Man’ manage to combine the vast, celestial frequencies of Arthur Lee and Love with the hip-swivelling drama of the Happy Mondays and George Clinton both. It’s a weird combination, but not unpleasant, the chaps creating a base from which to explore the terra ferma of a rich and expansive musical landscape. ‘Tommorow’ is part Byrds, part Flying Burrito Brothers, part Bob Lind and part Roy Orbison. Not what you’d necessarily expect when situated alongside the beeps and bloops of more contemporary sound signatures, but meshed together so cleverly and so sensitively, that the gaping voids between genres seem positively cursory. Sure, there are tracks that simply don’t work. ‘The Happy Song’ doesn’t really work on any level. It’s spurious. It’s indulgent and it’s so throwaway that you wouldn’t even know it was missing. And then there are songs like ‘She Don’t Love Me No More’ – as tender as sigh, as gentle as a flower and as simple in its assessment of love as the very first-kiss and the very last goodbye.
The real success of the album is that it creates its own self-contained environment. Like a time capsule carefully put together by John Noakes and Valerie Singleton and planted in the Blue Peter garden, the basic contents reveal the development of an entire musical culture. It’s fibrous. It’s full of layers. And it sounds bloody good to boot.
Put together by the original core members of the Beta Band – Gordon Anderson, John MaClean and Robin Jones – the summation of years spent gluing themselves, nevermind sounds, together, ‘Astronomy For Dogs’ is the myspace generation’s Dark Side Of The Moon, it’s Sweetheart Of The Rodeo. And I for one suggest you go buy it sharpish. Especially if you like anything that’s happened in music between the Monkees and the Klaxons.