You would have to search deep into the Seventies memorabilia to find the cover of the album that inspired the cover art Nashville’s The Paperhead used on their fourth album “Chew”. But then, that would help you that much to decipher the musical inspiration(s) this trio has since they cover not only decades but regions too.
Yes, the Seventies are there with all those Big Star riffs, harmonies, and brass (don’t go any further than the opener “The True Poet). After all, Memphis is (relatively) not that far from Nashville.
Of course, being from Nashville, you can’t skip country (rock) in any shape or form. Both “Pig”, “Porter’s Fiddle” (luckily, no fiddles present) and Over and Over, do so with intricate banjo and pedal steel arrangements, but give the songs an additional psych/power pop element that turns them into something that you can file (if you so wish) under “psych-country”.
But then all those British psych influences circa 1967, in the form of The Beatles and early Pink Floyd fly in but done through the eyes of somebody living in the 21st century. “Emotion (Pheremones)” is quintessential “Rubber Soul” seen through the eyes of another (now defunct) Southern band, Olivia Tremor Control.
“Fairy Tales” and “Drama De Lavanda” could be the modernized versions of songs taken from long-lost Syd Barrett notes, the latter given a trumpet and a flute arrangement that could have been prepared for Love’s “Forever Changes”.
And it goes on with variety - “Reincarnated” is like a “Yellow Submarine” ditty and the closing title track gives you the signal what you can do with that bubble gum that is stuck to your shoe.
My guess is that the band suggest you cannot simply discard something because it is inspired by “the old”. Of course, if you breathe some fresh air into it. And The Paperhead do. They might not be as light as the paper their name suggests after all.
