THE CLAYPOOL LENNON DELIRIUM
Psychedelic, slightly silly second LP from Primus man and rock blueblood.
It’s not easy to have a sense of humour in rock music. Too jokey and people think your music is nothing but a disposable parody from a “joke band” not worth fully investing your time in. Too subtle and nobody will understand that not everything you do or say is a lofty philosophical pronouncement or sincere artistic statement.
ABSURDIST FUN
WITH SOLID PSYCH-POP THRILLS.
So when Sean Lennon and Les Claypool first joined forces in 2016 on CLD’s debut album The Monolith Of Phobos, and presented us with zany psychedelic wig-outs called things like There’s No Underwear In Space, we were tempted to think it was a one-off studio lark whose jokes would wear thin.
Not so, on the evidence of this follow-up, which retains similar elements of absurdist fun but also seems to work harder to blend self-indulgence with solid psych-pop thrills.
When your surname’s Lennon you’re on a fool’s errand if you think you’re going to avoid Beatles comparisons, and sensibly Sean and Les simply embrace the Fab heritage in their ranks with regular and deliberate Beatular touches.
Yet never do they seem forced, pretentious or deliberately trying to remind the listener of the frontman’s high-born DNA. Instead they are imaginative, playful and above all, effective touches: the dum-dum bass and Lovely Rita-ish falsetto backing of Ask Your Doctor; the spiralling Harrisonian sitar figure that introduces Cricket Chronicles Revisited and the Revolution 9-style cacophony of gibberish that closes Psyde Effects. In fact, Lennon Snr himself could have written the stream of spoken word silliness within: ‘Beanfeastery, inflamed teeth, pendulous scrotum party, inability to swallow cadillacs.’
In terms of a musical CV, though, ex-Primus man Claypool has more to boast about. You can expect any band formed by a bass player to feature a four-string pretty prominently, and Claypool’s grundling Rickenbacker is high in the mix throughout. That means it has to do a good share of the heavy lifting, but it’s up to the task. His fantastic rumbling bass chords on opening track Little Fishes is the first really striking moment of the album, and then the title track is built around a winning downhill tumble of a low-end riff. Later, he echoes JJ Burnel’s trademark grunt in funky, ebullient style on Toady Man’s Hour.
These songs have more than just instrumental turns and skilled pastichery on their side, though. Songs such as Blood And Rockets and the eight-minute Amethyst Realm both benefit from strikingly pretty, melancholy-tinged chord patterns flowing through the freakpop fun. South Of Reality for sure, but close enough to home to keep you coming back.