Essex Green

The latest entry into the Elephant Six collective comes in the guise of yet another psychedelic pop ensemble. The five band members all write and sing, making for a varied collection of songs, touching on many of psychedelia’s sonic signifiers. Flower power ballads give way to swirling organ vamps, childlike pop melodies, sitar drones, back-tracked riffs, old tyme country and folk melodies and Mamas and the Papas-styled harmonies. Although the album suffers from an inconsistency in sound and much of the instrumentation is overly simplistic, taken on their own most of the tracks display their own unique beauty.