The Whitsundays are a 1960s psych-rock band born in Canada four decades too late. Unlike the The-Strokes-of-the-week buzz bands dry-humping the "summer of love" idea, The Whitsundays are the real deal.
While The White Stripes and Black Lips chase the slashed-guitar-speaker sound of the '60s, The Whitsundays draw more from the relatively overlooked sounds of The Zombies or Os Mutantes to create a hauntingly beautiful self-titled album that is as genuine as the hum of vintage electric organs that ring throughout. The baroque harmonies and lyrics about girls that somehow never come across as cheesy are especially reminiscent of The Zombies.
The highlight track "I Want It All" begins with a lazy melody that rolls over a staccato backbeat. It's accompanied by electronic keyboard before bursting into a boys choir, ending with an up-in-the-mix tambourine that sounds like a B-side cut from "Odyssey and Oracle" or an abandoned Oasis song - you know, from before Oasis sucked.
This album will probably be forgotten for a few years before a lot of people realize the songwriting is miles ahead of what passed as "psych rock" in 2008, and music nerds will collect first editions and discuss the album's counter-melodies and similarities to Syd Barrett tunes.
OK, so maybe every song isn't a golden egg. A few lilt along like leftovers from a surf or Britpop compilation, but before you could ever get bored, another superb track such as "Already Gone" comes along sounding as much like a Pixies song as it does a Ventures surf-rocker.
If you've ever thought you'd make a good Merry Prankster or that the '60s were way cooler before Richard Nixon came along, you'd surely benefit from listening to The Whitsundays.
markgreen@dailynebraskan.com
