The Higher State – Your Casting Doubt (Ltd. 7”)

Latest single from Kent garage-heads! 300 copies only!

The Higher State's LP from last year, the misleadingly titled Volume 27 was a winner for those of us who like their music with a distincly '60s hue. The three man line-up that made the album are back with a new 7”, limited to only 300 copies.

A-side 'Your Casting Doubt' has the same musical DNA as Volume 27 – plenty of fuzz guitar, authentic trebly production, and that Yanks-copying-Brits-copying-Yanks vibe that was all the rage back in '66. Wait a minute, these are Brits-copying-Yanks-copying-Brits-copying-Yanks! Get your hear round that folks!!

Anyway let's not get bogged down in the ethnology, suffice to say that it sounds great. Flipside 'X-Ray Day' tells a worrying tale of a hospital visit/nuclear dread delivered with charmingly lazy, nasal vocals. Neat!

If you want a copy, 100 come in a folded over sleeve (available via the band's own Bandcamppage), with the other 200 regular copies available from Market SquareRecords. Get ordering doods!

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The Higher State – Volume 27

Folksiness, Farfisa and fuzz guitar on fifth LP from Kent's garage stalwarts!

The Higher State's fifth long-player is on store shelves now (or more accurately available to order online) and does not dissappoint. Ten years into their tenure the band is now distilled to a three-piece; Marty Ratcliffe on guitar/vocals/organ, Paul Messis on bass/guitar and Scarlett Rickard on drums. With the writing split between Ratcliffe and Messis.

The touchstones of The Byrds, Love and The Electric Prunes are here to satisfy the faithful, but despite their love of US garage the band have a distinctly (English) personality of their own. To call Volume 27 a protest album may be a step too far but there is a state-of-the-nation thread that runs though the record.

Musically there's folksiness, Farfisa and fuzz guitar, with production values geared towards treble-friendly AM radio. The ear-splitting guitar solos and frantic drumming are balanced by the gentler folk-rock type tracks which helps hold it together as an album. (Unlike a lot of garage LPs which all too often sound like a cobbled together collection of A and B-sides)

For a musical form that was supposedly crystalised and archived on Lenny Kaye's Nuggets compilation it comes across here as in pretty good shape and the perfect tool to kick against thepricks of today.

To paraphrase The Who - “Garage rock is dead they say. Long live garage rock!”

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The Higher State - I Just Pretend 7"

The latest single from Kent's The Higher State was released at the tail end of 2012 on 13 O'Clock Records. The A-side features a brand new original track, penned by front man Marty Ratcliffe. "I Just Pretend" is two and a half minutes of superbly authentic West Coast folk-rock. The band come across as a great, lost Elektra Records act; their sound somewhere between the 12-string jangle and harmony of The Byrds and the garage folk of Love and all those great minor hit Nuggets bands.

 The B-side doesn't disappoint either with the band's take on The Gypsy Trips' Dylan-esque garage anthem "Ain't It Hard". The Gypsy Trips' version came out in 1965, but the song is perhaps better known for the altogether more snarly 1966 version by The Electric Prunes. The Higher State manage to put their own more polished, though no less enjoyable stamp on the track. All in all a great single.

Available on a limited 7", the single is in glorious mono and comes complete with a push-out centre should you want to stick it on your vinyl-playing jukebox.

www.13oclockrecords.com