Bipolaroid -E(i)ther Or : Space Rock at it’s finest

Hailing from New Orleans, this is not the sound of the Orleans parish.  Owing a massive debt to early Pink Floyd and Syd Barrett, Ben Glover fronts the band Bipolaroid.  Despite the band’s gimmicky name, and slight jab at Elliott Smith’s album of same name, Ben Glover and his cohorts deliver a tremendous psychedelic album full of swirly organs and guitars.  Glover sings in a style that is very similar to Syd Barrett, but he is no mere imitator.

The album is full of highlights including the songs, “Mouth of Lions,” which uses a watery reverb to excellent effect to wash over you with its dreaminess.  Bipolaroid then mix it up with British pastoral sounds intermixed with a jumpy backbone in the song, “Fell Out Of Bed.”  Not everything is sleepy and lazy sounding, as instrumental “The Golden Era” introduces a jagged guitar and more rock oriented sound before spacing out.

The album skitters out on one of the last tracks, “Spiralling Staircase” which uses too much drone machine and echo on Glover’s vocals.  After this one misstep, the album finishes suitably with a very cockney sounding “Jane Jubilee.”  The album is available on Surreal But Kind records or in MP3 form from Itunes and Amazon.com