Album: Darker My Love, 2 (Dangerbird/Strange Addiction)

Deep in the Los Angeles suburb of Silverlake, the long-dormant seeds of shoegazer drone-rock pioneers like Spacemen 3 and My Bloody Valentine are finally bearing fruit through bands including Silversun Pickups and now Darker My Love, whose second album becomes the band's first UK release.

It's not their first appearance here, however: when Mark E Smith was abandoned by one lot of American musicians mid-tour, DML's guitarist Tim Presley and bassist Rob Barbato stepped in to become the incarnation of The Fall that made the mighty Post Reformation TLC. On 2, they mingle shoegazer drones with melodic vocal harmonies, swirling organ, and serious doses of 1960s-style garage-punk psychedelia to create a miasmic, pulsing sound that's alternately limber and lumbering, sometimes in the same song. "Add One To The Other One", for instance, opens with sitar, slowly building into gentle organ-based psych-rock in the mould of Pink Floyd, speeding up as careening guitar feedback pushes it to the brink of "Even In Your Lightest Day", sunny psych-pop streaked with Jorma Kaukonen-esque guitar. Elsewhere, "Two Ways Out" is like a grunge version of Supergrass's "Alright" with West Coast harmonies, and "Pale Sun" borrows from Can's "Vernal Equinox".

Download this: 'Northern Soul', 'Blue Day', 'Two Ways Out', 'Pale Sun'