The Green Hills by The Heavenly Bodes–Album Review
The Green Hills by The Heavenly Bodes–Album Review
Emerging from the gentle coastal terrain of South Cornwall, England, The Heavenly Bodes’ debut LP, The Green Hills, is, at times, a reflection of its surroundings. The album’s opener, “De Gruene Heuvels” (the album’s title in Dutch), and its closer, “The Heavenly Bode,” both have a jangly late-’60s country-rock vibe reminiscent of The Byrds and Mike Nesmith’s solo output. “De Gruene Heuvels” bears a resemblance to The Monkees’ tune “Circle Sky” from the cult classic film Head, with its freaked-out fuzz guitar lines layered over jangly rhythm guitar. “The Heavenly Bode” uses a similar formula but adds shimmering guitar work and fiery fuzz leads to propel it along. Both songs possess a down-home style filtered through a kaleidoscopic haze.
The band branches out a bit further on the psychedelic family tree with “Acting,” using bubbling melodic bass lines and folk guitar to create something that could have been an outtake from Love’s seminal album Forever Changes. The first single, “Faux Pillars,” would fit beautifully on any Nuggets compilation, its upbeat garage-rock energy and propulsive organ breakdown (à la Raymond Daniel Manzarek) serving as a tasty bit of nostalgia wrapped in modern production. You can tell the band has done its homework when it comes to the sound it is trying to capture. Their music contains all the hallmarks of ’60s psychedelia in its many forms, but it never skimps on musicianship or songwriting. The guitars are consistently fuzzed out, spewing blazing, intricate licks over a tight, driving rhythm section.
“Spitting the Pips Out” (whose title is either a reference to a 1981 feminist work of literature or… not?) finds the screaming guitars evoking Arnold Layne-era Pink Floyd. There are mellow moments sprinkled throughout as well. “National Express” is quiet and almost elegant compared to the rest of the album, while “Sea Water” sounds like a 1950s pop song being sung from the depths of the English Channel. The vocals are drenched in effects throughout and are sometimes buried beneath the stormy haze of the music. It would be nice to hear them a bit more clearly to better appreciate the lyrical content, but the melodies work seamlessly within the song structures.
There is enough reverence for the past and restlessness in the present to make The Green Hills a comforting yet compelling piece of psych rock. While rooted in the familiar, the album reveals more than just early psychedelic influences. It is the sound of a band laying the foundation upon which it can continue to grow and evolve, incorporating increasingly diverse influences along the way. This LP sets the stage for what may prove to be a very intriguing journey for The Heavenly Bodes.
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