Hailing from Perth, the Psychedelic Porn Crumpets are one of a long list of bands that belong to the modern Australian trend of psych-riddled rock music.
Entrancing, mind altering, and a breath of fresh air. Psychedelic Porn Crumpets are revitalising the Psych Rock genre one riff at a time.
Spearheaded most notably from bands such as Tame Impala and Pond (both from Perth, obvs), these bands have influenced an absurd amount of high-schoolers to buy fuzz pedals and tie-die shirts whilst throwing away most of their shoes.
While being a regular in the Perth scene, playing local support slots for King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard, and Dune Rats, P.P.C have also just finished a national tour in May that saw them travel down the east coast from Brisbane and across to their homeland of Perth.
Now, I’m not sure what your personal opinion of this scene is but it’s one that this writer feels has seriously overstayed its welcome in the Australian music scene at large.
While there are obvious highlights in the genre like the aforementioned bands many copy-cat bands have been filling up the un-filled up bars in this country playing songs that sound mostly the same. The Psychedelic Porn Crumpets are not one of these bands folks.
Just from the single track Cornflake alone, it is easy to tell that this band not only has a pulse on the modern Australian musical climate, but also has a wider-range of influences that many others in their scene lack, influences that they pay homage to other than rip off.
For example, the main riff that glues the track together throughout wouldn’t sound out of place on a Black Sabbath record with a different guitar tone.
Other influences that they seems to wear on the heart of their sleeves are older classic acts like the 13th Floor Elevators, and Led Zeppelin; the bands that defined the era that created psychedelic rock music. This gives P.P.C an almost aura of authentic ‘psych-rock’.
Whilst the song lacks a strong vocal presence due its seriously, and I mean seriously overly wet, and low level in the mix, the rest of the band compensates for this, trading out a catchy chorus for a robust riff that is an immediate ear-worm.
The riff is as catchy as a great chorus that you don’t mind it repeating over, and over again. Even when the riff is slightly changed in a repeated section that is in an odd time meter, interrupting the repetitive simple groove, this angular riff work still has a strong hook to it that is still engaging.
The track is almost hypnotic, something that true psychedelic music is. Creating grooves, and soundscapes that draw in the listener and almost wash over them.
The most exciting prospect of this band is to see what they come up with next, can they push this unique yet familiar sound somewhere else, and set themselves apart from others around them? Their debut album High Visceral (Part 1) was released in March this year, and is a strongly recommended Aussie release.
