Behind this, maybe a little confusing name, you’ll find a sophisticated pop item, full of stupefying melodies and imaginative arrangements, made with an arsenal of exotic instruments (mellotron, moog, balalaika, glockenspiel, vintage keys…).
Acme Rock Group is actually a “one man band” project of Erik Rex, who is, no matter how far from the media exposure, persistent in refusing the fact that the sun, that used to shine a light on his parents’ faces throughout the summer of love, is now behind the unmerciful clouds of the modern age.
Just like the previous sentence, album Star, in itself, hides something that could be described like a fairytale-like content that couldn’t be heard since, say 1968. (at least by the ones who were lucky enough to be born on time).
The biggest part of this album consists of songs that used to be made as a result of the mynd expanding hallucinogenic experiments, in other words, psychedelic pop songs like Be With Me, Help Me or You’re Dead. In a contemporary, more simplistic definition, this means “songs that make you feel good”!
Fly To The Sun, mellotronizes some Beatlessence into the sound and so does Wasting My Time, with it’s “revolver” echoes girded on, while Floating could easily be the place where the west-coast harmonies meet early Bowie. As a special audio-spice, this retro-candy adds two brilliantly chosen covers.
The first is one the items bought at The Who’s Sell Out named Odorono that perfectly describes the instant pop sensibility of the quirky melodies that are the component parts of this collection, and the second one is World Without Love, McCartney’s Merseybeat classic written for his almost-brother-in-low Peter Asher and his partner Gordon Waller, here in a gentle, light arrangement, properly infused into the sound ambience that dominates the album.
Erik Rex, with a little help from his friends, managed, at least for a moment, to reactivate the long lost summer, and to the younger ones, he conjured up the grooves they weren’t able to experience firsthandedly.
[Released by Official Records 2002]
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