Three years in the making, the London-based neo-psych-rockers fifth studio long player, and first with new bassist Jack Flanagan, is a sumptuous distillation of the myriad styles that Mystery Jets have been weaving in and out of over the years, from the proggy post-punk of Making Dens and Zootime to the open road Americana of Radlands. Always an inward looking, albeit reliably quirky gang of retro-casters, Curve of the Earth finds the Jets assessing their place in the universe via nine incrementally protracted set pieces that invoke Soft Bulletin-era Flaming Lips, early Radiohead, and of course, Pink Floyd. Self-produced in a homespun studio in an abandoned button factory, Curve of the Earth wastes little time in setting the controls for the heart of the sun with the lead single "Telomare," a big, atmospheric blast of anthemic, mid-'90s stadium rock that segues nicely into the equally dreamy "Bombay Blue." From there things bounce back and forth between the bucolic and the sublime, peppered with plenty of crafty guitar bits that run the gamut from angular to downright noodly. Guitarist William Rees noted in the LP's press release that the group has "been through quite a lot in the last couple of years and there have been certain realizations that come with being in a band that has been playing together for two decades," and that sentiment is most deeply felt on the emotionally charged "Taken by the Tide" and the meditative"1985" (the year of frontman Blaine Harrison's birth), both of which strike the perfect balance between immediacy and nostalgia, which is something that Mystery Jets have been slowly but surely perfecting since 2003.
© James Christopher Monger. /TiVo