As cool as night and as slick as a razor blade, Frankie Teardrop Dead is a modern psychedelic rock tribe that seriously deserves a devoted cult following.

Already two albums deep, this relatively young British band has already found a strong footing and staked their own unique claim within the acid rock genre. When you listen to this record, it’s hard to tell if it came out of the 1960’s, the 1990’s or just yesterday. The band manages to sound like all three at the same time, while somehow feeling surprisingly fresh.

Songs like “I Love You (Me Neither)” and “The Cure” possess a stoned, nonchalant cool that echoes both the trippy, monochromatic vibes of The Vacant Lots or The Black Angels and the alchemical majesty of The Brian Jonestown Massacre. All throughout these songs, sleek acid guitar solos ooze from one speaker channel to another, tugging along hushed vocals and droning, otherworldly keyboards. The resulting sound is deeply dreamy and endlessly mesmerizing, taking your mind into a dark, kaleido-sonic world.

Perhaps where this is most evident is the spiraling maelstrom that is the transcendent title track. “All You Need is Love and Fucking Peace” progresses from eerie, ethereal waves of murky synths, haunting violas and backwards guitars into a chugging, shadowy somnambulistic rocker, complete with machine-like rhythms that just drill straight into your skull. The track locks into a solid groove and meanders hypnotically, eventually melting back down to woozy electronic drones, just before fading into the mellow raga-like album closer, “Lost Member of a Fake Boyband.”

Frankie Teardrop Dead is a fierce, defiant and refreshingly new voice in the world of shoegaze and psychedelia that will likely be someday as well remembered and well regarded as the bands that they themselves reference all across this excellent record.

-KH