Aussie psych troopers Pond return with their sixth album, the follow-up to 2013’s Hobo Rocket. Man it Feels Like Space Again opens with ‘Waiting Around For Grace’ on first impressions it would appear that Pond have gone with a straight up rock album, with a track that wouldn’t be out of place on any American indie album.

Fortunately that is where that side of Pond ends as they return to more familiar territory, with ‘Holding Out For You’ creating a relaxing and expansive psychedelic soundscape, bringing down the tone of the album to a more chilled level.

That said ‘Zond’ is akin to the work of Ty Segall, another upbeat exciting track. With a suitably funky rhythm as the vocals mimic Segall’s trademark wails, whilst those similarities can be drawn, this track has a lot more groove to it than many of Segall’s tracks.

‘Sitting Up On Our Crane’ is a beautiful track the dense instrumentation stripped away, allowing the heavily reverbed vocals to go to work. They swirl creating this almost trance like quality as all you can hear through the wall of noise is “All I want to do is get drunk and listen to Dennis Wilson” that in itself is an awesome lyric.

It’s hard to keep pace with Pond though as they move from these beautiful blessed out true psychedelic masterpieces, into the world of psych-funk with blissful ease and disregard for the listener’s mindset. You cannot help but find yourself grooving along to ‘Outside Is The Right Side’ as it has the funkiest bassline and the craziest psych freak-out going on over the top of it.

After all that though the record instantly breaks down to ‘Medicine Hat’, which is a complete departure from the previous track. It’s a record, which is easy to predict yet at the same time difficult to follow. There are monumental hits of adrenaline followed by these beautiful blissed out grooves.

Pond close out with a track which straddles the two distinct elements of the album, there are elements of the more chilled out tracks coupled with the heavier elements from their more intense numbers. It’s a fitting end to a very trippy album that is laden with some brilliant psychedelic nuggets and beautiful production throughout. 

Man It Feels Like Space Again is available from amazon & iTunes.