On Trial
Blinded By The Sun

LA RECENSIONE

A backlit vision, with the strong sun preventing any natural and perspective perception. The photems in the darkness of tightly closed eyes, a slight distortion of the shadow that eludes sense and form, leaving only intuition.

Garage, folk, pop, and acid, cemented by the witchcraft of these Danish guys who look to a band and a particular album: the Love of "Forever Changes". A wonderfully personal trip, as if they had always dreamed of being able to go back in time and play, even just once, with Arthur Lee's band, in the sticky heat of the evening, among dusty roads and desert horizons that seem to have no end. But more than a revisitation or a tribute, "Blinded By The Sun" is perhaps the natural evolution of music that certainly has its roots in the tradition of the '60s but opens to modernity for the sake of experimentation and achieves a masterpiece.

On Trial is a magnificent experience; I love their reverberated and so damn perfect harmonies ("Everything"), the full voice that renovates the eclectic prose, their soft atmospheres bathed in the shimmering acid of the guitars. One can lose oneself in acoustic episodes of lazy torpor ("Too Late") and then snap out of it with the amphetamine rock of Detroit garage derivation ("Poor Soul") made of wah-wah electric lashes and amplifier hums. "Blinded By The Sun" is a surprising album for its perfect conciseness in managing retro musical material and the level of attention to the latter: a unique dimension where the dreamy melodic sense coexists with an essentially garage approach and blends as much with hard rock as with psychedelic detours without ever clearly favoring one of the three directions but rather articulating them together. Thus, we encounter the magical and seductive flavors of California ("So Close") with the acoustic guitars' stride over brass and the aftertaste of Mexican popular music. The psychedelic disorientation of the 13th Floor Elevators in the title track and the pure and fierce rock of the Seeds ("Miles Away") side by side with the ultra-electrified and vaguely stoner heaviness of a track like "Downer" that anticipates the overflowing energy of a powerful final triptych. "Slippin and Slidin", "Kolos", and "Kosmonaut" close with a liquid and hallucinogenic bath, an exploration into space rock that forces heavy and generates a vibrant multitude of lysergic harmonies whirling, interlocking one with the other.

A splendid album, warm and dense like the scorching desert wind that blows away the sand patina on the eternity of sounds.