Pysch outfit Golden Ball hail from Philadelphia, but anyone who listens to their debut The Luxury of Pause would swear the band cut their teeth in Athens's Orange Twin Conservation Community with the rest of those long-haired, tape-hissing Elephant 6 hippies. There's no sugarcoating it, Luxury fawned over the lo-fi pop genius of E6 artists, most notably Olivia Tremor Control, whose sound was mimicked here right down to the theremin. Of course, anyone aping E6 bands is actually aping the myriad touchstones that inspired them, and realizing this, Golden Ball aim higher on psych-pop's pecking order with The Antique Barking Swirls of Dawn, an album that cuts out the middle man and taps psych at its purest roots.
However, just because the band's now feeding off material that's higher on the musical food chain doesn't make them anything more than the likable parasites they were on their debut. The only difference here is that they switch up their styles at a much quicker pace than on Luxury, infusing the standard sun-splashed pop with shades of stoner rock and shoegaze. In an even more striking change, frontman David Chadwick no longer hides behind the Olivia Tremor Control-inspired vocal fuzz, instead featuring his voice very prominently in the foreground--and in high fidelity. If Luxury, which Chadwick recorded in the secluded woods of Pennsylvania, advertised hippie values at their most Emersonian, Swirls of Dawn, by comparison, sounds like a shaggy-haired band ready for their big-time "Ed Sullivan" closeup.
First single "Signature Abstract" flaunts previously unseen muscle and élan from the band, rocking out on a Jesus Christ Superstar riff before delivering a chorus mantra ("dance for what on Earth we came for") that would've sent any apostle shimmying. The newfound guitar bravado's no fluke, either. Opener "Oxen Free" kicks off the album with a spiky staccato lead guitar that's loaded with a dexterity and narrative force fit for the court of the crimson king. These prog tendencies come full circle on Baroque ballad "Everlasting Abandon", a brooding closer that tramples any flowery sentiments the rest of the album had built up with a stormy brew of tremulous strings, keyboards, and haunting vocal harmonies.
While stylistically Golden Ball take some risks and venture into uncharted territory, Chadwick's vocals lag behind, hardly up to the task. For one thing, his lyrics are impenetrable and often just stupid. "Mermaids in Marmalade," by no means a standout track, stumbles over an extremely awkward opening verse: "Remind calliope to find some other kinds of measures/ to qualify in majesty these kodachromatic azures/ Of this aldeberranean mermaid in marmalade." Elsewhere, Chadwick sounds totally zonked out, languidly missing pitches or slipping completely into spoken word at inopportune times. Luxury hid these limitations with a lot of lo-fi psych tropes, but against the rawer, more candid backdrop of Swirls, Chadwick's stripped-down vocals blot out potential standout moments. As a songwriter, Chadwick's having a blast cutting and pasting his pet albums into unpretentious, variegated retro, but even an inherently sedated, drugged up genre like psych needs its share of killer hooks and showstopping moments. For now, Golden Ball's just honoring what they love by rote emulation, and that hand-me-down filtering keeps these songs from becoming more than a mere tip of the hat to psychedelic pop.
