SPILL ALBUM REVIEW: BABE RAINBOW – ACID AND HONEY

BABE RAINBOW 
ACID AND HONEY
EUREKA! MUSIC /AWAL

If Acid and Honey were a person, it would be that charming Australian stoner you met at a festival, the one you went home with thinking it would just be a good time, but who turned out to have an immaculately kept apartment and a shelf full of mid-century science fiction books. At first listen it feels effortless and easy to slide into, but there’s a surprising amount of discipline underneath the casual surfer vibes of Babe Rainbow.

The thing about psychedelic rock is that it’s almost too easy to lean into the introspective nature of the genre and become too myopic. It takes restraint to be able to say, “hold on, does this song really need to be 12 minutes long?” That’s what sets Babe Rainbow apart from many of their neo-psych-rock peers. Far from being an un-anchored, noodling jam session, this album is a solid, precise record where every fuzzy guitar solo shines feels sun-drenched and serene without once coming across as self-indulgent.

The title track, “Acid and Honey,” opens the album with a squealing electric guitar intro but eventually melts into something warm, gooey, and well… honey-like. Lead singer Angus Dowling’s feathery, restrained vocals resemble Ted Templeman of ‘60s sunshine pop group Harper’s Bizarre (best known for their cover of “59th Bridge Street Song (Feelin’ Groovy).”

“Special” is a shining, pulsating track with a groovy rhythm that almost feels like it was made to accompany the Alchemy setting on a classic Windows Media Player Visualizer.

“Polymuscalsaccharide”, a bass-driven toe-tapper, is the most ‘60s-influenced song of the bunch. A vintage synthesizer with a low-frequency oscillator, courtesy of producer Timon Martin, gives it a whooshing, ray gun-like flair that makes it sound like it belongs on the soundtrack to a forgotten sci-fi B-movie from 1968. The self-aware line “So long and thanks for all the flange” (referencing Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy) acknowledges both the science fiction influence and the technical aspects of its creation.

The album’s lyrics are somewhat minimalist and spacious, leaving room for the dense instrumentalization to breathe, but they aren’t filler. Sixth track “Mangoes” contains the line “I’m a stranger in a foreign land but I don’t understand/all these synchronicities put my mind at ease” which references the classic ‘60s sci-fi novel Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert E. Heinlein. This lyrical deep cut shows that the band’s obsession with the 1960s goes beyond surface-level aesthetics.

According to the band’s lore, their first release was written and recorded in a second-hand bookshop, but this, their seventh album, shows no traces of being rough around the edges. It is a polished, well-executed slice of contemporary psych-rock. If the moon is a harsh mistress, Acid and Honey is a warm, welcoming wife.

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