2 out of 5

Label: Un Je-Ne-Sais-Quoi

Produced by: ?

Music can be technically pretty good… but still be bad. As ever, creative stuff is totally subjective; I couldn’t quite figure out what was bothering me about ‘The Unforgettable Trip Of The Psychologist And His Medicine Band,’ as it seemed – technically – to be something I’d be about. Some of its jam-band funk maybe ran into a 90s hippie vibe that doesn’t always appeal, but otherwise, the psychedelic rock riffing and willingness to get big and loud should work – a more straightforward, not-every-album-needs-a-theme King Gizzard.

Should work, but wasn’t.

So there’s a thought: I put on KGLW’s Changes – a similarly funky effort from the band – after a few spins of Unforgettable Trip to compare, and the drastic difference in my attention span, held rapt by Changes where it wandered during Trip, helped make something clear: The Psychologist And His Medicine Band were playing all the hits, but without the heart. The songs are there. The passionate vocal delivery is there. It rocks; it’s got some good breakdowns; solid beats. But – though played tightly, and not not performed without passion – this rings like a patchwork band, plucking those influences from around without maybe fully digesting them; regurgitating (to extend that…) without understanding exactly how they worked in the first place. There’s something about that that’s represented in the singer’s delivery, which is… mostly English, but maybe there’s also some French, as it’s hard to say due to the extreme, disaffected drawl with which the words are sung. This very much reminds me of the offhand manner in which the rock revivalists of the mid 00s (e.g. The Strokes) would sing – and this album is from 2008, so perhaps it’s more that era – but it becomes rather noxious when paired with the 70s riffage, and the faux-drum circle funk. Again, it’s like picking and choosing things the group liked and melting them together, but there’s no quality control on the final product.

King Gizzard are probably a tough comparison – not all they touch is gold, but I think their standing in the modern psych scene is pretty solid for a reason – however, it underlines Psychologist And His Medicine Band’s near lack of hooks. Riffs: yes. But my frustration with listening to the disc is how immemorable it was, without a single chorus or melody standing out. It just keeps moving forward, somewhat mindlessly.

And so while, from afar, it has the right moves, The Unforgettable Trip frustrated more than anything. All I wanted to do was move on to more satisfying examples of the genre.