The Deathray Davies "The Fall Fashions"

Over the course of their first four albums, I’ve developed a love/hate relationship with The Deathray Davies. Their great songs, like “The Medication’s Gone” from 2002’s The Day of the Ray, hold up remarkably well to the repeated listens that their irresistable Nuggets riffs demand. But, like most bands on 60’s psych-rock compilations, the bulk of its catalog apart from the occasional “Talk Talk” or “I Can Hear the Grass Grow” is inessential.

The band’s new album, The Kick and the Snare, offers much promise for the future of the band’s sound, however. While still aping instead of transcending their influences (Who, Sonics, and, believe it or not, Kinks), it feels like their most fully realized and serious effort yet–song titles like “Chinese Checkers and Devo Records” and “Don’t Point at the Stoners” are gone, replaced by, among others, opening track “The Fall Fashions” hinting that they might have discovered Exile on Main Street.

Buy The Kick and the Snare here.

Filed under: The Deathray Davies