SIMPLY SAUCER
Cyborgs Revisited (Sonic Unyon)
Reviewed by DJ Johnson

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If you haven't ever heard a Simply Saucer... I don't really want to say song, because the best of it should be called "experiment" or "journey," but let's stick with "song" for now, but matter what you call them, if you haven't heard one, the closest I can come to giving you a ballpark idea of what they sound like is to ask you to imagine melting The Velvet Underground, Mott the Hoople, The Silver Apples and Syd Barrett and pouring the molten blend into a CD template. Of course, it's a silly idea because it'd never cool, but we're suspending disbelief here anyway. You'd have a band that has an undercoat of rock and roll (in this case, so "under" it sounds like it's buried in mud), a vocal that is sometimes tuneful and sometimes uttered (and sometimes down there in the mud with the basic tracks), and then you'd have someone making all kinds of extremely cool racket with synths, oscillators and theremins. Sounds like something out of the early 70s, you say? Good call. It was recorded sometime around 1974, and the Canadian band didn't release a follow up, unless you could the late 70s stuff that has been added here as bonus tracks. Those songs are okay for what they are, a competent power pop bar band's competent power pop tunes, but in a blind listening test nobody would even guess this was the same band that had played the insanely inspired psychedelic rock that dominates Cyborgs Revisited. This music is an inspiration to create.

© 2003 - DJ Johnson