Milk Maid
Album: Mostly No
Label: FatCat
Tracks: 11
Website: http://www.milkmaidmilkmaid.blogspot.co.uk

Dense and frequently frazzled fry up of old school psychedelia, baggy-era choruses and a punky throb that Iggy would vaguely recognise, if not remember. Dopamine opens proceedings with a woozy rush that's interrupted by jagged time lapsed guitar stabs in a faithful approximation of what it feels like to wish you hadn't done that thing the night before.

The scale of the opening track doesn't quite prepare the listener for the ragged mercy run of Do Right with its garage guitars and eyeball-pinned vocal extravagance, but more typical of the whole affair is Stir So Slow, which suggests a half-realised idea that the Mary Chain shared with Jason Pierce and Richard Ashcroft back in the day.

Milk Maid are lead by former Nine Black Alps bassist, Martin Cohen, who should have known he could have made much more of all the elements here - this music needs scale and wit, as MBV or Slowdive will attest.

Still, there's much to like - Your Neck Around Mine conjures more hooks than a festival fling between Lightning Seeds and Kitchens of Distinctions, Summertime does something similar with Guided By Voices and Pavement, while No Goodbye - the closer - finally suggest Cohen has relaxed enough to really let go.

What might have been, eh…?

Nick Churchill
www.thegranvillechambers.co.uk