PSYCHONAUT

Brainticket followed up their insanely trippy debut album, Cottonwoodhill, with this one, which remains firmly in psych-prog territory but is somewhat more approachable. Whilst it isn't quite as extreme as the previous album - there's less orgasmic screaming and no half-hour hypnotic rhythmic freakout - the consequence of this is that the album seems a bit more forgettable, the band conceding a little too much of their identity in their sidestep towards the mainstream. Some of the flute work on Coc'O Mary, the final track, is reminiscent of early Jethro Tull, for example, and for most of the album the band seems to put forward a tamer, safer, and ultimately less interesting vision of psychedelia than on their frenzied first album. It's good psych, but it's not freaky enough to be really good hard psych and not gentle or beautiful enough to be a great example of the softer side of psychedelia; as a consequence, it's an uncomfortable compromise which does what it does perfectly competently but excels at nothing.