Promised Land Sound
For Use and Delight (Paradise of Bachelors)
The latest in a long line of ’60-’70s psych revivalists currently finding success, Nashville’s Promised Land Sound uses the sound popularized by the likes of the Band, Gram Parsons, and Big Star as a starting point for their own brand of country-tinged psychedelic rock.
Promised Land Sound’s influences are obvious, but what elevates For Use and Delight beyond a mere anachronistic exercise in false nostalgia, is the band’s earnestness. And while contemporaries like War on Drugs are content to drone on ad nauseum, the songs on For Use and Delight are intricate and varied, and never stay in one place for too long. Album opener “Push and Pull (All the Time)”, for example, starts with guitar harmonics (not dissimilar to the intro of Battles’ “Ice Cream”) before opening into a galloping beat and three-part harmonies. The chorus slows things down as triplets give way to a military march before building back up into a psychedelic freakout, complete with tape effects and distorted guitars reverbed to infinity.
The lush production on For Use and Delight is perfectly suited for these songs. The dreamy, laid-back vibe of “She Takes Me There” is reminiscent of LA psychedelic pioneers Love, while “Dialogue” sees the band go instrumental as a pair of complementary guitars pick away in a folk-bluegrass reprieve.
Of course, the band knows how to crank it when they want to, and songs like “Otherworldly Pleasures” and “Golden Child” provide some rollicking, rambling fun.
Lead vocalist Joe Scala’s pseudo-Dylan warble can come off as affected as times, but it’s rarely distracting. “When it’s all said and done, you’ll be the one who’ll lose,” he sings on album closer “Within Sight”, invoking Rubber Soul-era Beatles.
Promised Land Sound may not be breaking any new ground with their music, but they have the chops to keep it interesting.
Rating out of 5: ★★★★
