Electric Shepherd: The Imitation Garden

Everything and nothing, all at the same time. It is a neat trick and a hard one to pull off. A fine line of tightrope proportions, a breath of wind capable of easing you ever so gently to your graceful, yet inexorable doom. Take your pick from art-rock, trad blues, heavy rock, psychedelic, free-form jazz rock and a myriad other broad sweeping genres and Electric Shepherd will fit into them all, but not quite. Is that a good thing? Obviously. Does it mean a lot of people will "get" Electric Shepherd?? Hmmmmm....... Yes, Electric Shepherd are attempting to do all of this, and yes, at the same time.

So, with such blurred genre lines, let's go for distinguishing features. Dreamy passages, they are here in abundance. Washes of sound that remind of everything from early Fleetwood Mac to early Pink Floyd swoosh over you frequently. A dash of Led Zeppelin? More like a fuzzed up fixation. The busiest, laziest drumming, which includes lots, loads and then some of cymbal work, also assaults, taking the lead often, building the atmosphere even more so. Easy-osy vocals that remind of Robert Plant lounging around and stubbornly refusing to squeeze any lemons. Some may see this conglomeration as noodling, others as daring. The truth is that they'd all be right, wrong and well, who knows? Yes, all at the same time.

The 60s flash past, flowers powering, summers loving. The 70s edge into view, amps cranked, rock being well and truly rolled and while three decades are rightly - or wrongly - eschewed, the banguptodateness of it all leaves no doubt we are in the heary-nowy with a sharp production and arranged to the max sparseness. Did I mention that Electric Shepherd do all of this. At the same time?

Clever, crazy, admirable, confusing, enjoyable, throwaway, opinionated, easy going, Electric Shepherd. Enter The Imitation Garden at your peril, you'll either willingly stay forever, or be screaming madly for release from the pleasant, calculated madness of gay-abandon. Whether you'll ever make your mind up, I'm not quite sure. All I know is that this album has been playing for three weeks without a break, the start button never needing pressed, the time-counter constantly turning through numbers I never knew existed, unhingedness beckoning me ever closer. Electric Shepherd's work here is done....

Oh and thanks for the $1 bribe that came with the CD........

Track Listing
1. Totem I
2. The Escapist
3. Imitation Gardens (Pt. 1)
4. Imitation Gardens (Pt. 2)
5. Totem II
6. Angels In The Grove
7. Into The Forest, Father
8. Mechanical Flowers/Angels (Reprise)
9. Heaven Don't Need
10. Totem IV-V
11. Sometimes I Think About
12. In Search Of The Ocean

Added: February 9th 2013
Reviewer: Steven Reid
Score:
Related Link: Electric Shepherd Bandcamp
Hits: 1898
Language: english

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