Espers – III

If any genre of music epitomized the late 1960s it was psychedelic folk. The meeting of acoustic guitars and trippy boundary pushing seems rooted in those few years when many believed that the counter-culture could win out over the political forces of evil. But such is the cyclical nature of music that, like just about any style you care to mention, psych folk has had its own revival. Along with bands like Animal Collective (in their pre-Moog days) and Six Organs of Admittance, Philadelphia sextet Espers have led this renaissance. III is their fourth album (presumably they don’t count covers album The Weed Tree), and like its predecessors it conjures all sorts of natural splendour: wide skies, dark forests, grand landscapes. The dextrous musicianship on songs like the eerie Caroline and the undulating That Which Darkly Thrives leave you in no doubt: psych folk can outlast its sell-by-date. [Nick Mitchell]