Pond are one of the most versatile, inquisitive, and accomplished bands of the psychedelic rock vanguard.
The last four Pond albums have been showcases of tidiness and brevity, 10 ideas always tucked into 40 minutes or so. But on Stung!, they gleefully, madly, and wilfully lean into double-LP largesse, tapping the spirit of Tusk and Sign ‘O’ the Times by funnelling 14 songs into the most unfettered and splendid hour of their recording career.
Stung! delivers some of Pond’s most glorious rock songs ever and also some of their least rock moments, all psychedelic drapery or funk vim. In that epic, as in Stung! at large, Allbrook speaks to our collective modern paradox of being disappointed in or even disconsolate over a world that we know more about than any prior generation but also being in awe of it and (sometimes) each other, too.
There are so many reasons to cry and so many reasons to marvel. Can’t they all, Pond suggests with Stung!, be reasons to sing?
The last four Pond albums have been showcases of tidiness and brevity, 10 ideas always tucked into 40 minutes or so. But on Stung!, they gleefully, madly, and wilfully lean into double-LP largesse, tapping the spirit of Tusk and Sign ‘O’ the Times by funnelling 14 songs into the most unfettered and splendid hour of their recording career.
Stung! delivers some of Pond’s most glorious rock songs ever and also some of their least rock moments, all psychedelic drapery or funk vim. In that epic, as in Stung! at large, Allbrook speaks to our collective modern paradox of being disappointed in or even disconsolate over a world that we know more about than any prior generation but also being in awe of it and (sometimes) each other, too.
There are so many reasons to cry and so many reasons to marvel. Can’t they all, Pond suggests with Stung!, be reasons to sing?
TRACK LISTING
SIDE A
Constant Picnic
(I’m) Stung
Neon River
SIDE B
So Lo
Black Lung
Sunrise For The Lonely
Elf Bar Blues
SIDE C
Edge Of The World Pt. 3
Stars In Silken Sheets
Boys Don’t Crash
SIDE D
O, UV Ray
Last Elvis
Elephant Gun
Fell From Grace With The Sea