Album Review: Psychomagic

[GARAGE POP] Zaniness is an underrated quality in rock 'n' roll. It reached peak value around the Lollapalooza era, then plummeted in the late '90s as the market flooded with neo-swing bands dressed like Dick Tracy villains, and fluorescent-haired pop-punk dudes writing entire albums around dick jokes. After a decade reigned over by disaffected cool and indie pretensions, though, music with a sense of mischief is once again a rising commodity. There are a lot of bands in Portland playing retro-psychedelic garage rock, but Psychomagic stands out among them precisely for the advanced silly streak running through its genes.

Bad Ideas, the group's second album and first for L.A. cassette label Lolipop, has fewer overt goofs than its self-released debut—which included songs adapted from an unfinished puppet musical written by singer-guitarist Steven Fusco—but the tunes that stick the strongest are those in which the band allows its freak flag to fly at full mast. "Your EBT (Can't Buy My Love)" is a rollicking kiss-off for the starving creative class. The paisley-print "Flowers on the Sun" frolics through a field of love-stoned hippie-dippieisms, with jangly guitars and an insistent la-la-la chorus. A former children's musician, Fusco is a vocal character actor, affecting a lascivious faux-British snarl on the hip-swiveling "Go-Go Ladies (From Outer Space)" and the grinding "Your Lover" and shifting into a dead-on Donovan impression for the slow-burning closer "Sun Song." For the title track and album centerpiece, Fusco goes full-on Bobby "Boris" Pickett, monster-mashing in a Transylvanian accent over groovy Farfisa organ. 

Of course, the trick to pulling this off is letting the music keep a straight face, and Psychomagic, which delivered one of the standout sets at this year's PDX Pop Now, have grown into a seriously tight ensemble. Let's just hope its members never take themselves too seriously.

SEE IT: Psychomagic plays Mississippi Studios, 3939 N Mississippi Ave., with Minden and Talkative, on Saturday, Dec. 20. 9 pm. $7. 21+.

WWeek 2015