Album Review: SPLIT SOFA – Coloured Dream

June 28th, 2013 by alanjones

Self-released – 3^rd April 2013

Good news folks – dig out the kaftans, it’s 1967 all over again.

If the so-called ‘Summer Of Love’ did it for you way back in the day when The Fabs, The Beach Boys, Traffic and The Byrds, among countless others, dipped their feet into the multi-coloured world of psychedelia, then you’re going to love this.

Midlands-based Split Sofa (I don’t know whether the name is taken from an arrangement of furniture or something they’ve seen in the ‘Readers’ Wives’ section) have been delivering their own take on the genre for some time now – ‘Coloured Dream’ is the band’s sixth album – and whilst it might not be to everyone’s taste it cannot be denied that they make a damn fine job of what they do.

Eleven tracks on offer and all bar one self-penned – although as the album progresses you keep thinking ‘isn’t that so and so’ and ‘isn’t that who them’?

This, of course, is inevitable when you unashamedly plunder a bygone era, but it’s to the band’s credit that, with the exception of the opening track which is a shoo-in for The Who’s ‘I Can’t Explain’, it is nigh on impossible to nail just who it is.

It is also to the band’s credit that they manage to pull off what must be a labour of love without resorting to tired clichés or mere pastiche.

In fact, despite the psychedelic tone of the album, there are many contemporary twists scattered all over the place, not least in the outstanding fretwork of Joe Nicklin and the insistent, driving basslines of Gareth Williams.

Nowhere is this more evident than on ‘Move Like A Shadow’, probably the standout track, the chorus of which has one of those repetitive, tenacious riffs that stays with you for days.

Other highlights include ‘Don’t Breathe In’ with its outstanding guitar solo, the more downbeat ‘Fallin’ Leaves’, the anthemic ‘Alright’ and the excellent Beatles/Floyd mash-up of closer ‘Songbyrd / Merry Go Round’.

Split Sofa are unashamedly retro and wear their psych heart on their sleeves, but they certainly know their way around a good tune and there is so much to admire on ‘Coloured Dream’ that even hardcore hippy-haters would grudgingly admit finding something to enjoy.

I bet they’re a blast live as well.

***1/2

Review by Alan Jones

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