File under: ‘Liquid Goth.’ Black Moth Super Rainbow’s unique brand of neo-psychedelia somehow manages to sound eerily familiar yet completely unlike anything else at the same time… perhaps it’s their affinity for lo-fi recording, analog synths, tape loops and singular deployment of druggy tropes. Something akin to Boards Of Canada if they had the balls to sing through a vocoder and weren’t too posh to sleep on floors and play scuzzy house shows, but slightly more focused and less haphazard than the Tobacco solo stuff. Panic Blooms is just as fun as any other Black Moth Super Rainbow record, but there’s something more creepy than usual coursing through the veins of these tracks… as if the collaged face on the album cover is smiling because he’s keeping a sinister secret none of us are really prepared to hear. There typically aren’t any overtly human sounds found on BMSR records (although there’s a nice little bit of acoustic guitar tucked away on “To The Beat Of A Creeper”), and sometimes it’s easy to forget there's a group of living, breathing human beings hiding behind the heap of synth cables, drum machine circuitry and vocoder hose. Still, there’s a tremendous amount of humanity in some of these songs… like the wobbly R&B vocal melody on “Permanent Hole,” or the heartbroken despair shining through the cracks of album closer “Mr. No One” (previously issued on a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it 7-inch a few months ago backed with an exceptional Ariel Pink + Tobacco collab). Other highlights: “New Breeze,” “Bottomless Face,” “Panic Blooms” and “Sunset Curses.” 16 tracks total, pressed on pink double vinyl with custom silkscreened print on side D and code for digital download, released by Rad Cult. Recommended.

• limited edition pink colored vinyl pressing
• silkscreen print on side D
• gatefold sleeve
• digital download included
• music label: Rad Cult 2018

reviewed by edward james almost 05/2018