Album: Darker My Love, Alive As You Are (Dangerbird)

You'd never guess from Alive As You Are that Darker My Love's Tim Presley and Rob Barbato were once part of The Fall: this third album from their Los Angeles quintet shows that the kind of psychedelia they're interested in is not the garage psych-rock beloved of Mark E. Smith, but a more refined strain rooted in the sylvan harmonies and cosmic sentiments of West Coast alumni such as The Byrds and Grateful Dead.

Tracks like "Rain Party" and "Backseat" could be outtakes from the latter's American Beauty, with their gently curdled melodic sweetness, while the jangly arpeggios and perceptual ruminations of "Split Minute" finger it as a Byrds homage. They also do a nice line in ersatz English psychedelia, with echoes of Soft Machine, Traffic and Tommy-era Who.

DOWNLOAD THIS Backseat; Rain Party; Split Minute; 18th Street Shuffle