Jess and the Ancient Ones: Second Psychedelic Coming: The Aquarius Tapes

"A Day in the Life" by The Beatles has a famous line that says "I'd love to turn you on." The meaning behind these words may not be as obvious as they seem at first glance. Turn you on to what? Turn you on in what ways? It turns out that there are multiple answers. "I'd love to turn you on" can mean turn on your brain, turn on your body, turn on your ability to see beyond the present moment, and so on.

It turns out that Jess and the Ancient Ones also want to turn you on. I don't know that it has to be in the way understood by The Beatles, but it is pretty close. Here's a band that looks back to the time that talked about the coming Age of Aquarius, a time that saw liberation just over the horizon and sometimes even used music to discover depths of experience possibly not known in other ways. As the title of the album has it, this is the second psychedelic coming.

Jess and the Ancient Ones have enjoyed plenty of critical acclaim and engaged audiences. With this album, they will certainly keep things going strong. I generally like bands like this, occult rock bands that play with mysterious themes and ideas and do so with the right mix of psychedelia and something similar to pop music. The result is a fun and wild offering, music that speaks to the heart and mind in cool and curious ways.

This album works best when the music leaps past its typical mid-tempo romp. The slower material is good, but it occasionally drags when it should let the overall vibe lift the music, speed it up a little. Some of the music is also simply too long. "Goodbye to Virgin Grounds Forever" probably shouldn't be just over twenty minutes in length. The band handles the long form well enough, but there's always that risk of things just going on for far too long. Fortunately, Jess and the Ancient Ones chooses to keep things simple in ways that avoid giving the impression of indulgence for its own sake. Still, I liked shorter tracks like "Samhain" and "Wolves Inside My Head" much better. This band is comparable to another occult rock group called Purson. If you haven't discovered either of those bands, I recommend them both.

Track Listing:
1. Samhain
2. The Flying Man
3. In Levitating Secret Dreams
4. The Equinox Death Trip
5. Wolves Inside My Head
6. Crossroad Lightning
7. The Lovers
8. Goetia of Love
9. Goodbye to Virgin Grounds Forever

Added: December 4th 2015
Reviewer: Carl Sederholm
Score:
Related Link: Band Facebook Page
Hits: 2215
Language: english

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