Review: The Red Plastic Buddha - Songs For Mara

I first became aware of The Red Plastic Buddha via a couple of tracks on The Active Listener samplers. I got a free download of the LP via the band themselves, so obviously a top bunch! 'Songs For Mara' is the band's 3rd LP, and I'll be honest, I have not, as yet, heard the previous 2 but that will be rectified very soon. The Red Plastic Buddha have been recording since the mid 2000s and have since then been a mainstay of the Chicago neo-psychedelic scene, along with The Luck of Eden Hall, whose Gregory Curvey provides some ace guitar work on this album.

The album is chokka with good tunes, catchy hooks and some unexpected moments, and chops and changes approaches and styles whilst still maintaining a good, sold psyche sound. The album encompasses hazy, spacey shoegaze ('She's an alien'), some lilting, pastoral folk-psyche ('Being Human' - some gorgeous flute on this courtesy of Lindsey Snyder), some out and out psych pop ('Little White Pills' and 'A House is not a Motel', the latter a cracking re-working of the Love track), some wall-of-sound fuzziness ('Go' - which leads into 'Staring into the Void' - a patchwork of voices and sounds ending in an ominous, repeating mantra of 'it's not over yet'. 'Trip Inside This House' has a real glam rock feel to it while 'Jupiter Gas' has an almost Nurse With Wound experimental vibe about it. The album closers 'Girl like You' and 'Stuck on Zero' are a couple of driving, garage tracks and wrap up the album in some style.

On first listen I thought this album was probably more 'radio-friendly' than those to which I would normally be drawn, but subsequent listens uncovered a darker, thoughtful heart to it (apparently the album's title is a reference to Prince Shakyamuni’s path to becoming Buddha) and one gets the impression that band leader Tim Ferguson has used the writing of the album as a form of catharsis and I, for one, like music that Means something, and this album certainly does - cracking album.

PS..If you go to the bands Bandcamp page to get this album, and I urge strongly to do so, check out the free track of 'Set The Controls For The Heart Of The Sun' - a really, really great re-working of the Floyd classic.



Links:

Bandcamp

Faceache