A platter of breezy, easy on the ear psych-tinged guitar pop is the order of the day in The Rifles’ latest set.
The popular British minnows’ third album, recorded at Paul Weller’s Black Barn studio, is a baker’s dozen of generally splendidly realised, taut and breezy psych-pop nuggets.
Latest single Tangled Up In Love is sweet guitar-pop defined, its violin riff and bounding rhythm as wide-eyed and soppy as a Labrador pup.
Piano-powered Love Is The Key tears down the same blissful path, and opener Dreamer is drenched in a Spector-ish wall of sound and echoed vox, putting them in league with The Bees or Treefight For Sunlight.
The Essex five-piece’s timeless songwriting means even the yearning Everline’s hat is tipped at a jaunty angle with handclaps and tambourine.
There’s precious little experimentation, but this is hugely enjoyable psych-lite guitar pop squeezing the last out of the summer.
4 stars
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