They describe themselves as "
the most exciting thing to come out of Redhill (Surrey, UK)" in the last three centuries, their music crosses genres like chickens cross roads and they approach their music with a typical
British mix of seriousness and humour. Who are they we hear you ask, well they are
Roger Atkins (guitar & vocals);
Aaron Strachan (bass, synth, kalimba, vocals) and
Matt Ainsworth (drums, synth, mellotron, flute and vocals) a trio otherwise known as
Trevor's Head.
Trevor's Head are a combo who have been doing their thing in and around the
British underground rock scene for what seems like forever and have been releasing albums and EP's since
2012, with
2016's "
Tricolossus" and
2018's "
Soma Holiday" being the most noteable. The band have just released their latest album "
A View From Below" (
APF Records), an album the band describe as "
a lean and cohesive expression of the power trio's precision, which marks the next stage in the genre-bending and ever-evolving sound that is Trevor’s Head" and we at
Desert Psychlist just call "
their best album TO DATE!".
Trevor's Head's previous releases have been an eclectic blend of stoner rock, prog, punk, folk and alt-rock and that doesn't change for "A View From Below", what has changed though is the flow the band achieve with this album, those previous albums, although great, tended to leap back and forth dynamically almost as if the songs were thrown together with no real though process being applied, raucous punk rock sitting next to lilting prog/folk complexity followed by stoner metal bluster. At times it seemed that it was a case of we wrote these tunes in this order so that's how they'll appear on the album but this is not so with the new album, the track listing on "A View From Below" has a flow whereby each song is placed perfectly in line so as to best compliment its near neighbours. First song "Call Of The Deep", an enthralling blend of stoner rock fuzziness and prog-like intricacy coated in a Wolf People like folkish vocal melody, is followed by "Under My Skin", a superbly put together tome that mixes chainsaw guitar textures with off-kilter rhythms and playful vocal trade offs, but because these songs share certain sonic elements the transition in styles appears less abrupt and sudden than on previous albums.. And so it continues throughout the remainder of the album with songs like "Grape Fang", "Rumspringa", "A True Gentleman" and "Don't Make Me Ask" all boasting radically different musical attacks but each bonded to it s neighbour by its shared elements, the jarring sudden dynamic shifts of previous outings replaced by a more subtle progression that is much more easier on the ear and is in turn far more satisfying and enjoyable..
It has been stated elsewhere that no one sounds quite like Trevor's Head and it has to be said that no one quite does, they are a band who bring to the table a level of diversity not common in this scene we call "the underground". Strangely it is this diversity that has held them back a little in the past, not because of the music they play but in how they have presented that music to the public on their albums. Spin any track off of their 2018 album "Soma Holiday" in isolation and its love at first listen but play all of the albums songs back to back and it all becomes a bit overwhelming simply because there is no sense of flow or progression, the listener is faced with an overload of styles and genres coming at them from every conceivable angle all at once with no real sense of cohesive structure. Recent interviews and notes on their social media pages seem to point to the band being aware of this and so with "A View From Below" they have strived to address this problem and have as a result recorded what is the best album of their career so far, an album that flows like a river and yet still retains all the charm, originality and uniqueness we have come to love from this talented and quirky threesome.
Check it out ....
© 2023 Frazer Jones
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