Sic Alps – Napa Asylum – Drag City - ??? - ***

Sic Alps, who once name-checked the Welsh mystic Arthur Machen in a song, suggest the infantile daubs of Syd Barrett spliced with 1980's New York noise.
Most of the twenty-two songs on their fourth album are less than two minutes long.
The confident young trio lay down a loose riff or a fragile acoustic guitar arpeggio, imply from a few choice phrases and twangy licks how they could develop it were it not beneath their massive intellects to do so, and bin it before it coagulates.
Rock music for rock fans who are sick of rock.

(16/1/11)