The Vapour Trails new On A Beautiful Day EP (released 26 July 2023 on Futureman Records) feels like it could be the bridge between their yesteryear aesthetic and the fostering of a more muscular sound.

For while the previous two albums, Golden Sunshine (2020) and Underneath Tomorrow (2021), coursed psyche-pop inflections through the handsome elegance of their version of power-pop, this album slathers their sound with psyche-pop and psyche rock to provide an altogether ‘stronger’ experience, that is also rooted an altogether more retro production essence.

As such, we are treated to a trip through just how beautiful the psyche can be. The opening title track is obviously the outlier on the release. Seemingly intent on benefiting from the collision between garage rock and psych-rock, this is the sound of the Scottish quintet ‘letting go’ like the band or indeed any of their recent solo projects have never done before. For an act famed for an omnipotent sense of pretty, they somehow proffer gruff with equally as glorious aplomb.

Of course, their sense of beauteous psyche-craft cannot be tethered, and the rest of the EP ensures it is not. I Looked Into Your Eyes moves within the same circles that frontman Kevin Robertson touched upon on his recent Magic Spells Abound solo album, as he drifts the sounds towards the whole eastern mystic psyche-pop scene, whereas Next Life returns to their janglier The Coral sound of yore and Reminisce float within a sound that hankers for the 1960s west coast sunshine.

In just four tracks The Vapour Trails cement their burgeoining reputation as the finest purveyors of psyche…it just finds even more gears here !

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