The UK's Talking Trees makes psychedelic folk music steeped in the grand tradition of its countrymen. Acoustic allusions to the early Beatles abound, and this quartet even covers "God's Children" by The Kinks as the album's penultimate song. There are plenty of Jefferson Airplane and Byrds influences here, too. "The Delusion" opens delusionland on an incomplete note, seemingly ending in mid-song. But then "Praying To St. Jude" reveals the band in all of its pretty, vintage glory. Problem is, too many songs here sound like "Praying To St. Jude." The soft, one-dimensional production, along with the sweet vocals of Stephen O' Sullivan and Sean Robert Chambers, gives the band a sleepy sound from which Talking Trees doesn't recover until delusionland's final song, the intricate "Athabasca." This atmspheric rocker with an edge hints at the depth these guys can navigate -- and proves they are't the wusses some of the other songs make them out to be. More numbers like that (and fewer twee tunes like, well, almost everything else) would go a long way toward broadening Talking Trees' audience. So, for that matter, would an easier-to-navigate and more legible web site.
Track Listing:
1) The Delusion
2) Praying To St. Jude
3) William
4) Willow
5) Song For A Someone
6) Samarkan
7) Mammon Mandarin
8) The Talking Tress
9) Wake Up World
10) Bread and Circuses
11) God's Children
12) Athabasca
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