GALILEO 7, THE - Tear Your Minds Wide Open!

Medway garage-psych at its finest! Limited to 300 vinyl copies with free CD featuring an exclusive extra track! This Kentish quartet have now been kicking out keen psych-pop nuggets since 2010, over the course of four albums and several 45s, but vocalist/guitarist/songwriter Allan Crockford's illustrious past and parallel present, as bassist with a roll call of the greatest British bands of the past 30+ years - The Prisoners, The James Taylor Quartet, The Prime Movers, The Solarflares, Graham Day & The Forefathers - seems to have, weirdly, done 'em no favours. And in an age when peeps of a certain age are going goo-goo googly-eyed over the XTC back catalogue, rediscovering all manner of 60s psych-pop and garage treats, and lionising such moderne combos as Thee Oh Sees and Tame Impala, that the Galileo 7 haven't reaped comparable plaudits seems just plain stoopid. This, their fifth album (counting the scorching "Live-o-Graphic" set), sounds like the work of a quartet of twenty-somethings - it's high-energy, psychedelic garage rock'n'roll, replete with catchy, memorable tunes, seriously gnarly guitar, darkly humourous lyrics, four-part harmonies, Viv's searing organ, Paul's pin-point bass work and gloriously crash, bang, wallop drums, in a Keith Moon meets Thom Mooney (The Nazz) vein. The latter comes courtesy of longtime Galileo 7 bassist Mole (Embrooks / Higher State / State Records), whose shift to the drum seat has really kicked everything up a notch - his dynamite sticksmanship and stellar backing vox really bring out the best in the band - from the kinetic opener, "Cold Hearted Stowaway", to the vinyl album's elegiac closing track, "Nobody Knows Anything", they're firing on all cylinders. Record Label: Damaged Goods Style: Indie