ninehertz

It’s dark before 8pm, the shops have stocked Halloween gear for a few weeks now and you have to dig out your big coat for even the quickest trip out. What was summer has gone and The Gray Goo, from Montana, recognise this period of year on their latest Cabin Fever Dreams – the beginning of “the gray haze of a long winter” and seasonal depression that can arrive with it.

It is a slightly surprising concept for a band we’ve long followed and perceived to hold a sense of fun and frivolity, but then there’s always been more to them than first impressions. Musically The Gray Goo are creators of a rich tapestry of psych, bold prog rock and occasional doom.

You hear it in the excellent first track Intrepid Traveler, where playful post-rock mingles with happy go lucky psych, before going off on a wander into the woods in its prog minded middle. The lyrics are on theme, asking you to decide “what makes you feel the love deep down inside” between the 9-5 or the “bright magical glow of everything”. It’s a great start.

On Isolation, following stoner rock beginnings, it turns with a mad guitar effect that sounds like its underwater and bizzarro vocals, the whole made from half rockabilly punk, half circus ring conductor. As ever with The Gray Goo you can’t complain about complacency or lack of variance, but this is a little jarring, especially against the smooth psych of before. There's similar on the title track, where crazed wide-eyed vocals run along the guitar line.

For the rest of the album however it is a kaleidoscopic ride, strong whiffs of King Gizzard emanating from Floodgates, a punk paced, spirted and appropriately named Manic heading towards a psych version of Eighties Matchbox B-Line Disaster, mystical noises and prog sojourns omnipresent. This is the joy of The Gray Goo, and on an album that acts as a narrative of the mental health traps of the season they can also provide part-solution with music that will light the fires within and keep you smiling.