MARMALADE SOULS

In Stereo

(RAINBOW QUARTZ)
www.rainbowquartz.com


Jim McGarry ‘s Rainbow Quartz label has gathered together a fascinating roster of psychedelically inclined pop bands. The finest was, without a doubt, Cotton Mather whose Kon-Tiki sounded like late Beatles recording with a Brian Wilson who’d actually benefited from taking LSD. They came from Texas, but Jim will trawl the world for intriguing sounds.

Marmalade Souls hail from Sweden, though they have an Irish drummer, and really wanted to call themselves Marmalade Skies; that gives you a pretty good idea of their preoccupations. In Stereo is a record jammed full of 60s- saturated pop songs, and it’s carried off pretty well. The husband and wife team, Michael and Johanna Klemme, do good voices and there’s heaps of period guitar, hooks, and harmonies.

Most of the time they successfully avoid appearing too knowing, but as often with bands like these it’s the variety that gives them away. Thus they run from West Coast sounds on ‘It Won’t Be Too Long’, to a Hollies vibe on ‘Fall Into The Sky’, to a near-perfect Zombies take-off on ‘Say Goodbye’. Then they turn it around with the exceptional Blind Faith-like ‘Good Days’, hinting at a different direction it’d be interesting to see them take.