The Laissez Fairs - Marigold

The Laissez Fairs is the psychedelic brainchild of John Fallon (from the 80's Voxx band the Steppes) along with his Vegas cohort Joe Lawless (Trevor and the Jones) and John's son and fellow Rum Bar Recording artist Cromm Fallon on bass and musician-about town Aaron Archer on drums. Following in his psych-pop traditions of the Steppes, the LF are acid-drenched, with plenty of psychedelic effects and trappings combined with plenty of melodies.

This latest offering opens with "Long Grow the Marigolds", a song that moves fluidly from upbeat, garagey power chords to trippy, organ-drenched lysergic emanations. In "Phantom Stranger" they provide a nifty bit of Freak-Beat, "My Thursday Girl" is a sing-songy psych-ballad with Brian Jones-y touches, there's a bit of raga-rock and backwards guitars in "For You To Know", "Your Love or Hate" is a Donovan-esque psych number, there are some nicely heavy power chords dominating "Mr. Wryly", "Molly" is a quiet acoustic ballad and they return to some psych-flavored heaviness in "Redundant Beach".

They sound like they are traversing the looking glass in the poppy "Dirty Alice Jones", then get a little more rockin' for "Follow the Money" and "Firebyrd" starts off with some edge and then the microdot hits and it goes off into the stratosphere, "Crown Plaza" is kind of a George Harrison-styled folk/psych/pop, they float on clouds for the dreamy ballad "Remember Her", there's a reprise of sorts of the initial cut, this time appropriately titled "Marigolds Return", "Lilly May" is a cool mix of garage'n'psych and the whole sheebang closes with more late-60's-type psych in "We'll Get There Someday".

Nicely done psyche-pop here - fans of the Steppes and bands like Plasticland will not be disappointed. Rum Bar Records seems to be doing a fine job of distributing so this shouldn't be hard to find for those so inclined!