They say:
The ninth album by Italian psych rockers Julie's Haircut deserves to be played loud, finds Sean Kitching
First of all, it would be difficult, nay impossible, not to begin with this band’s name. What’s in a name, you may ask? In the case of Julie’s Haircut, the next logical question for most music fans would most likely be: what on earth where they thinking? Closely followed by: and why do they persist in using it? The answer, it seems, is lost in time. For Julie’s Haircut, originally formed in Sassuolo, in northern Italy, have been active for the past two decades, and are, I am reliably informed, relatively well known in their country of origin. In The Silence Electric, is their ninth album overall, and their second for the excellent Rocket Recordings imprint. Whilst it could certainly be argued that when the content is as good as this, the words on the label matter less, it’s still hard to imagine Mercury Rev ever making it had they been called ‘Grasshopper’s Bangs’, or Spacemen 3 ever ‘Walkin’ With Jesus’ had they been called ‘Jason’s Fringe’. Thankfully though, the music contained within is very good indeed, recalling in parts both of those bands – and in the case of Mercury Rev, hearkening back to their messy, sonically overloaded early period, especially their psychedelically epic second release, Boces.
This kind of indie psych-rock territory is a particularly well mined area, but here Julie’s Haircut mostly manage to negotiate the fine line between being a band of that genre and being themselves, without straying into the shallow waters of similitude that many bands of their ilk end up inhabiting. That The Silence Electric accomplishes this mainly in terms of form rather than content, shouldn’t represent cause for alarm, as sonically speaking, this is pretty thrilling stuff...
Read the rest here: The Quietus
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