Neon Indian: Psychic Chasms

Terrible band names are an instant turn off, if we're being completely honest here.

If you've never heard of a band or artist before and the first and only thing you're given as an introduction is the name 'Neon Indian' then, well, you can't blame us from being just a little sceptical from the get-go. 

So what of this underground but definitely noticed début release from VEGA member Alan Palomo? Since a review comprises more than taking one look at the cover before abjectly throwing it out the window, surely the music contained within will be enough to redeem the band? After all, even Gayford Buttram of Niangua, Missouri must have done something productive in his life.

Well, if we're honest, no, it's isn't.

The twenty-five second intro track (AM) successfully grabs the attention the moment it launches with a mixture of confusion and questionable criticism. A laser battle of electronic whizzes and buzzes shoot through the speakers as an odd, contradictory and frankly annoying sample of a voice and a snare crash in over the top.

Ears are pricked and attention is grabbed as Deadbeat Summer, track two from the LP begins. An instantly attractive and unabashedly head-nodding rhythm commences, bathing in rhythmic fuzzy guitar chords and a constant electric pitch-shift. Vocally it offers nothing special and its chorus is awfully derivative but there's just something about it that gives us a hankering for an alcoholic beverage , a heat-wave and a sun lounger.

Over the short, barely half-hour album, the solo-man offers out a range of different variations on the same, eight-track, 'old-school' sound and though he's openly trying damn hard to solidify a specific sound, he just doesn't do much with it. You can choose a unique genre to attempt, sure, but you have to possess the talent and creativity to fill out your sonic landscape with more than just one, rather simple musical goal and a host of aged video-game bleeps and blurps. There are hints and speckles of ability and capability to be seen, it's just marred by an artist struggling to keep up with a steep musical learning curve who's taken a fair few steps in the wrong direction.

The comparisons to MGMT are viable to a degree but it seems more deliberately lo-fi than their subtle but slick electro-synth pop. He's opted for a certain organic, underwater viscosity in his production (reflecting Bibio at times) and it's a noticeable high point to the listening process. He goes all out on title track Psychic Chasms with trembling bass-lines, screeching synths, thick, creamy key's and a pulse from outer-space. It builds on everything before but still doesn't stand as something you'll be dying to tell your friends about afterward. It's frustrating too as he can obviously experiment to some sort of successful degree as, well, most of his music is overflowing with noises and tiny, almost unnoticeable additions that never seem important until taken away. If he's so good at building decent atmospherics then why on Earth is he filling that space with such routine tedium?

A whole years worth of more time to get comfortable in his distinct and difficult surroundings and a few more ideas other than 'lets make thirty minutes of tinny sounding electro-pop' would've aided this struggling LP to no end. It gains a brownie point or two for its presentation and effort but it's still a throwaway summer record with no real longevity.

We'll be looking up Neon Indian in a few albums time when we hope he'll have found footing a litle more solid than the crumbling rock currently underneath him, or when he changes his name, whichever comes first.