Jorge Elbrecht's long musical career is filled with highlights, ranging from his work as a member of
Violens to producing albums by
No Joy and
Tamayrn, to writing songs for
Aly & AJ. In the latter part of the 2010s and early 2020s,
Elbrecht embarked on variety of musical journeys into areas as diverse as experimental metal and dark wave. On his 2021 solo album
Presentable Corpse 002, he explores '60s psychedelic pop as filtered through the Paisley Underground and a reverb plate as big as a Winnebago. Most of the album sounds like the
Three O'Clock playing in a wind tunnel, only without a single pitch-perfect note or era-specific sound being lost in the headwind. The songs are wonderfully melodic and filled with both musical and vocal hooks.
Elbrecht sings like he's the most innocent of choir boys and plays almost all the instruments himself, adding enough 12-string jangle to the mix that even
Roger McGuinn might look askance. There's so much sugar on the surface that it's almost possible to miss the lyrical undercurrent.
Elbrecht wrote the album from the perspective of a soldier in Vietnam and the songs deal with the horrors and frustrations of war, nostalgia for life back home, and dreams of escape. The opening "Blocking Out the Horror" lays the concept bare right away, wrapping some harrowing lyrics in a melody worthy of
the Turtles and swirling production that sounds like a cross between
S.F. Sorrow-era
Pretty Things and early
Pink Floyd at their trippiest. This plays out through the whole album as
Elbrecht details some gnarly thoughts and emotions backed by some of the lushest, achingly pretty psych pop imaginable. Bright and sunny tracks like "This Time or Never" and the
Zombies-like "The Clouds Are Gone" play well against quiet ballads ("Brittle Vines Break") that sport minor-key moodiness and beautiful vocal harmonies. Big-sounding songs like "Fading Memory" could fill a large club, with echoing jangle lining up nicely with intimate, dreamlike songs that have a big swath of melancholy running through the middle ("Pierced by the Ice"). And at least one song -- the insanely chirpy bubblegum-meets-horror pop "Dawn Is Creeping" -- seems destined for a future Nuggets-style compilation of 2020s psychedelia.
Elbrecht nails the tricky conflict between lyrical darkness and musical light, and has generally made a record that should be in the collection of every fan of psych pop looking for something pleasingly retro and brightly modern at the same time. Not surprising considering the high level of his past work as an artist and producer, but stunning all the same. ~ Tim Sendra