Magic Shoppe are a fascinating psychedelic rock/neo-psych band from Portland, Oregon. While having released the Interstellar Car Crash EP earlier this year, they also came out with a new album only about a week ago or so, and it packs some fine noisy neo-psych from start to finish. The only surprise about this release and the band in general, is that they are relatively unknown in comparison to other similar neo-psych bands.
The first track on the album is titled ''Stars Explode'' and the track starts of with some fuzzy stoner guitars only to move into a rather fast paced fuzzed out psychedelic path. While the track is relatively short, then it offers some rather addictive and catchy neo-psych on the heavier stoner side. ''Head On The Floor'' is the following track, and this one tends to be somewhat mellower, while reminding the likes of The Holydrug Couple and the Ecuadorian neo-psych band El General Villamil. All in all the track is some rather conventional, but otherwise pretty good mellow psychedelia. The third track ''Kill'' tends to be somewhat fuzzier and offers a pretty clear krautrock rhythm section, while also packing a somewhat darker reverberating atmosphere throughout. ''Hearing Voices'' also stays in a similar path and offers some fine memorable and quite addictive dark neo-psych, perhaps being the best track on this all-round good album. While saying this, the following track ''Blowup'' also pretty much kicks ass, but this time in a more up-beat manner. The same exact thing can also be said about the sixth track ''Sister Burden''. A track that offers some voice excerpts as well as some noisy static sounds along with some fuzzy guitars. The penultimate track ''Find Yourself To Love'' can also be summed up as some rather catchy krautrockish neo-psych with some sitar sounds thrown into the mix as well if I am not mistaken. ''Wonderland'' is the track that sums up the album, and this one is all about some dreamy and meandering psychedelia, and thus rather different from darker more menacing tracks like ''Kill'' and ''Hearing Voices''.
All in all ''Wonderland'' is a pretty solid neo-psych album and what is really great about it in particular, is that most of the tracks tend to be good in one way or another. This means the amount of filler tracks is brought to a minimum, and that is of course a great thing.
Some related links:
Bandcamp: https://littlecloudrecords.bandcamp.com/album/magic-shoppe-wonderland
