Category Archives: Psychedelic

Mad Mackerel The Last Five Years – Dr Roddy Looks Back

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MM The Last Five Years - Dr Roddy

Believe it or not, Mad Mackerel has been around for more than five years now. During that time we’ve posted more than 4,000 times, and offered more than 5,000 songs for your listening pleasure. And more than three quarters of a million people have paid MM a visit during our lifetime on Google’s godawful blogspot and since April 2010 on WordPress.

We asked some of the regular MM contributors to give us their top twenty songs since MM first went live and we’re also going to give you one big mega-listing shortly, but first up with their personal top twenty is the right honourable Dr Roddy.

Through good fortune and fine sailing I have been lucky enough to be involved with this blog and it has provided me with some of the finest music in genres I maybe wouldn’t have looked in. So when asked to compile a top twenty of tunes from the last five years, I kicked aside the memories of musical turmoil that is involved with the yearly top tens, poured a stiff drink and set about it with relish.

20 Dan Auerbach – Heartbroken, In Disrepair

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19 Dirty Bourbon River Band – Train Is Gone

Download Dirty Bourbon River Show – Train Is Gone mp3 (from Volume 2)

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18 Tame Impala – Half Full Glass Of Wine

Download Tame Impala – Half Full Glass Of Wine mp3 (from Tame Impala EP)

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17 Janice Graham Band – Front Door

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16 Ox – Midnight On The Island

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15 Dennis Hoppers Choppers – Good To Me

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14 Timber Timbre – Bad Ritual

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13 Nathaniel Rateliffe – Brakeman

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12 William Elliot Whitmore – Old Devils

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11 What Would Jesus Drive – The Girls Are In Charge

Download What Would Jesus Drive – The Girls Are In Charge (live) mp3 (from What Would Jesus Drive EP)

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10 The Cave Singers – I Don’t Mind
Wonderfully carefree and happy song that could so easily be heard drifting out of a doorway in Haight Ashbury with some interesting smelling smoke circa 1967. Yet this song never bows or becomes a pastiche of that, it rises above it all with its own verve and character.

Download The Cave Singers – I Don’t Mind mp3 (from Welcome Joy)

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9 Brown Bird – Wrong Black Mare
Sullen, desperate story songs are a bit of a fave of mine and to be honest I think I can trace it back to this song. A tale of woe, desperation and unpaid debts are told here with such clarity, it’s as if you’ve got drunk with Brown Bird and they have decided to spill their guts to you. You understand though, ‘coz at some point we have all backed the “Wrong Black Mare”

Download Brown Bird – Wrong Brown Mare mp3 (from

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8 Mummy Short Arms – Cigarette Smuggling
When I wrote my first review of this song I thought I had described quite well. Upon re-reading it, I can safely say that my view has changed and will probably change on my next listen to it. The insanity, confusion, and babbling of this song are what holds my love for it. It’s an enigma wrapped in a riddle, all encased in a funky B-line, foot tapping beat, gravel throated, roister of a song.

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7 Strayfolk – What Wouldn’t I Do
This is such a beautifully crafted song. Simple, but packed with a rich warm sound that feels like it lends weight to the honesty of this tale of lost and forlorn love. Perfect Americana direct from Sweden.

Download Strayfolk – What Wouldn’t I Do mp3

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6 Withered Hand – Religious Songs
A piece of lyrical mastery is on display here. A fantastic sing-a-long arrangement supports the witty word play that Dan Wilson sings with a vulnerability to his voice. This doesn’t stop him from punching the words that need emphasis. This song also ask the obvious question “How does he really expect to be happy, when he listens to death metal bands?”

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5 Tweak Bird – Weight
I love the in-your-face nature of this song. Right from the start, it sets its stall out – flat out, foot on the amp rock, and proud of it to boot. The guitar plays a gritty riff that sounds angry and frustrated, while the drummer is hell bent on punishing every bit of his kit.

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4 Grass House – A Cradle A Short Breath
The deep sombre tones that lay across this song act as a perfect partner to the bass as it pounds along at a merry old pace. It never fails to make me give a wry smile as I bob along to it’s woeful chorus of “A cradle, a short breath”.

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3 Roadside Graves – Far And Wide
I still think Roadside Graves is the best band name of this century and Far And Wide is a song that has stayed with me since my first listen – I was hooked. A great country riff lures you in and you hardly notice that the song fills with more and more sound and pleasure until it finishes and you’re left with a hole where the music once was, so you reach for the replay button, you know like musical heroin.

Download The Roadside Graves – Far And Wide mp3 (from My Son’s Home)

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2 Wooden Wand – Servant To Blues
As this track rolls effortlessly on, Wooden Wand spills his bleak melancholy tale of a servant to blues. In other words, the relationship equivalent of the Church’s pious man. I love the rhythm of this track, it almost seems to tick along like a clock. The peacefulness of this song is speared through the heart with a great screeching guitar solo, this then just seems to ebb back into the shadows it leapt from, only to be covered by the warm sound of the organ. Truly blissful…

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1 Henry’s Funeral Shoe – Stranger Dig (Everything’s For Sale)
For just two guys damn! They make some noise. Great heavy blues tinged riffs and rolling drum beats – I’m loving that all day long. There is talent and passion in abundance here. I’m sat here trying to write something for this whilst listening to it, that has had to stop, as when it plays it just grips me up and I can’t do anything other than get right into it. If you’re looking for something new rock wise I beg you to check them out, live if possible. Disappointment won’t be on the menu.

Videos of the Day: Secret Colours || Arrows of Love || Temples || Water Liars

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Videos of the Day

Watch the tripped out video for Secret Colours excellent track Blackhole and the unsettling and spooky video for Arrows of Love delicate yet blood-splattered murder ballad The Knife. We have more kaleidoscopic effects on Temples video for forthcoming single Colours To Life, and finally (via a heads-up from Slowcoustic) comes Bird Of Song from a Show Me Shows session by the wonderful Water Liars that was way too good not to re-post.

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A Third Track From Blank Realm…

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Blank Realm Go Easy

Having first been been fascinated by the seven minute melancholic churn and burn of Blank Realm’s Cleaning Up My Mess, then charmed by the scuzzy guitars and 90s slacker indie of second track (and album title) Go Easy, we have now been left grinning like maniacs after listening to the utterly seductive, completely irresistible, and totally infectious Working On Love.

It pairs an increasingly frantic and frazzled chorus with an inspired rock’n'roll stomp that has been dragged from a 1950s diner, turned upside down and shaken until all its secrets have fallen out its pockets. Unstable, slightly bonkers even, but so very, very good!

Download it below and order yourself one of the albums of the year so far from Fire Records here.

Videos of the Day: Yeah Yeah Yeahs || Oracle O. || As Elephants Are || The Callen Sisters

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Videos of the Day

Videos today follow a bit of a natural history theme. We have a mesmerising film for the Yeah Yeah Yeahs Mosquito and feathers fly in Oracle O.’s video for excellent single Rosy Princess. We have Youth Blood, the exuberant indie single from As Elephants Are, and finally we have the sepia toned film for The Callen Sisters Light Bringer, an excursion into baroque pop and traditional folk.

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Roll Up, Roll Up: Round Up Time Again

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Round Up Time Again

Here is another collection of fifteen top tunes lovingly collected and filtered for your listening pleasure. So gather round and invest some time in these – a veritable aural treasure trove of tracks.

First up is another track of swaggering blues rock and roll in the shape of New York Avenue from the Delta Routine’s recently released album, Cigarettes And Caffeine Nightmares.

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In a similar vein, the bravely named Velvets from down under, have a big, sleazy blues sound going on with their free download of Shoot You Down.

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Darren Hayman has shortened his Long Parliament and returns with a new album of seventeenth century folk songs called Bugbears, which is due out on Fika Recordings in July. A companion piece to previous release, the very well received The Violence, have a listen to Seven Months Married.

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Graham MacRae has shared a new single from his album Dundrearies and by the sound of Game Changer, those Bill Fay and Bill Callahan comparisons seem pretty much on the money.

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Granite City is the lysergic new single from Aussie psych indie-rockers Deep Sea Arcade.

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London’s Low Moon Low are set to release their first official single with Calm Now, sweetly melodic indie-folk that errs on the side of dreamy.

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The wonderfully skewed world view of Justin Farren featured on MM back in March last year and he is back with a new album Another Bluebird Day from which we have Mostly In My Mind. This time he plays it a little straighter on the back of an upbeat folky strum and some scalpel sharp lyrics. Great stuff.

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Spectrals have given us another track from new album Sob Story. Inspired by Dave Edmunds, A Heartbeat Behind has a great riff and is full of rockabilly twang and heartbreak lyrics. No longer are the brothers low key, lo-fi merchants and it bodes very well for the album indeed.

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Two Inch Astronaut have given up Blood From A Loyal Hound for download, a convulsive rocker propelled by a muscular power-pop melody.

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Quilt hail from the eastern shores of Massachussets, where the band formed out of a tight-knit art collective in the winter months of 2009. They combine traditional folk vocal harmonies, reverb-drenched fingerpicking and meditative drum repetition in a patchwork of eclectic psych-folk ideally suited to their name. Open Eyes comes from a recent split single with MMOSS.

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Carmen Villain, aka London-based Carmen Hillestad, recently released her fiery debut album, Sleeper. Introduce yourself to the darker and more psych-oriented side of the album via Made A Shell.

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Half The Time, the A-side of recent 7″ single by Nick Ferrio & His Feelings is a psychological thriller, exploring one man’s realization that his love is unrequited and only exists within the confines of his fallible mind.

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Like the excellent Allah-Lahs, The Young Sinclairs mix folk rock and garage rock with plenty of jangle in the style of The Byrds or Rain Parade and their most recent single Hurt My Pride is a top-notch example of what they are capable of.

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Though we were late to it, we are loving the gorgeous Hymnal by In The Valley Below, a duo from Echo Park in LA who are a new musical pairing, delivering hushed swirls of male and female vocals forged with dark stories of brooding riddles and romance.

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And lastly (for now) we have a taste from Robert Pollard’s (of Guided By Voices fame) new album Honey Locust Honky Tonk. The song, I Killed A Man Who Looks Like You is already one of our favourite titles of the year so far and thankfully the tune itself more than lives up to its title.

MM Shorts 373: Heavy Deeds

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MM Shorts 373: Heavy Deeds

We have become quite taken with the shimmering psych-rock of Heavy Deeds that sounds like it has hitch-hiked here in a stoned fog from the early 1970s. That, in case you’re wondering, is a very good thing indeed.

Five track EP Light Lunch is available in a limited edition vinyl run of 150 – order via Bandcamp here.

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Better Late Than Never – Black Manila Offer Up Free Download

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Black Manila

How we missed this in our in-box (from way back in March) is beyond us, but miss it we did. We need to right that wrong!

Black Manila have featured a few times on MM with their blend of classic west coast garage riffs, Detroit proto-punk and British charm, that combined makes a heady and compelling marriage.

To celebrate the recent release of their debut single Shake That Thing, they are giving away the infectious and addictive Père Lachaise as a free download. For anyone enthralled by the recent success of Ty Segall, Mikal Cronin, The Allah Las et al, or a lover of the 60s sounds of the Sonics or the Seeds, you will find much to enjoy here. In fact we defy anyone with functioning ears not to be toe-tappin’ and head-bobbin’ before you’re halfway through this song.

Videos of the Day: The Handsome Family || Dead Confederate || Jonny Fritz || Foxygen

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Videos of the Day

The brilliantly weird Americana of the Handsome Family has long been a fave at MM and new album Wilderness is awaited here with much eagerness. For now, enjoy the video for Woodpecker about the famous 1890s Wisconsin window smasher Mary Sweeney (pre-order the album here) and stream a second album track in the shape of Caterpillars.

We’ve already posted a couple of times about Dead Confederate this year and new album In The Marrow is a triumph of muscular crunchy guitars and swaggering, drawled vocals. Watch their boozy new video for Vacations. We also have Jonny Fritz’s brilliant fireworks and dancing video for Goodbye Summer and Foxygen’s new video for No Destruction, our favourite track from their excellent album We Are the 21st Century Ambassadors of Peace & Magic. Like they say “There’s no need to be an asshole, you’re not in Brooklyn anymore“.

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Introducing >>> Landmarks

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Introducing >>> Landmarks

We have to confess that on Cuscutta the lead track from their new digital single Public House, Landmarks managed to catch us by surprise. The track is a lovely, unhurried, slice of woozy psych-pop in the grand traditions of Spiritualized or Mercury Rev, and unlike so many others, they manage to do it without ever bring derivative or mere copycats.

So an entirely pleasant surprise, as guitars gently chime and hazy vocals float like gossamer strands on the breeze. It is an inventive and fresh take in a usually tired genre, and comes to you highly recommended.

Grab both tracks from the single below – it is a pay-what-you-want deal, but paying something would be the right thing to do!


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