(Community/Shock)

Magical Mystery Tour: The College Years

Thank the heavens for Up From Below; for a moment there I was beginning to think I’d be without a summer smiles album to see out 2009. In 2008 it was Little Joy, in 2007 I was still elbows deep in my fascination with Big Star … I have no problem with including Edward Sharpe (real name Alex Ebert) and his nine other hippie bandmates to such an auspicious list. Not sure how kindly how I would have reviewed Up From Below during those cold Brisbane winter days – yup, all 12 of them – but lets’ not look a gifthorse in the mouth. As dreadlocked messianic frontman, Ebert rules the roost on Up From Below, his warm yet strained baritone taking first chair amidst a cavalcade of harmonies. Like psych-rock epic Forever Changes from Love, it’s a gumbo of musical styles that feel like cruising through the sprawling Los Angeles landscape. Opener 40 Day Dream, with its honky tonk keys and serene strings, is expectedly handclap ready, while the Mexicali guitar twang and Mariachi guitars are the soundtrack to pistols at dawn. When Ebert teams up for a John & June-type duet with Magnetic Zero Jade Castrinos on Home midway through the album, you know you’re listening to a keeper. And on the song Jade – as opposed to the bandmember – Ebert fuses more mariachi brass and Spanish guitars with trembling baritone vocals to beautiful effect … someone tell Devendra Banhart he’s no longer the hippie Neil Diamond. I promised myself I would try not to do a dull song-by-song analysis, but that’s how Up From Below pulls you in. There ain’t no cure for the summertime blues, but we may be able to alleviate the symptoms.

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MITCH ALEXANDER

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