PSYCHEDELIC PORN CRUMPETS - NIGHT GNOMES Vinyl LP

Within 11 seconds of clicking “play” on “Lava Lamp Pisco” it’s instantly apparent why Night Gnomes, the latest album from Psychedelic Porn Crumpets might be their greatest offering yet. The track is a riffy monster that delivers a much-welcome Black Sabbath-style slap to the head. It’s big, shiny, sleek and irresistible. It’s Psychedelic Porn Crumpets giving their best and Jack McEwan the band’s fearless leader has the battle scars from the four-second harmonica solo to prove it.

“I hadn’t blown the harmonica in five years. It was just sitting on my desk,” he recalls. “The first thing I did was suck in all this dust, and I couldn’t talk for like a day. Afterwards, the rest of the band was like, ‘You have to scrap that. It’s so cheesy.’ Anyone under 30 hates it, but it has the dad-rock vibe, so I kept it in.”

That devil-may-care spirit is present on each and every song on Night Gnomes. With guitarist Luke Parish, drummer Danny Caddy, bassist Wayon Billondana and multi-instrumentalist Chris Young by his side, McEwan bunkered down in his home studio, creating a sonic pastiche that almost sounds like turning the dial on a temperamental old radio every few minutes.

“A lot of these songs are structured from the beginning, but then we add another part towards the end to really keep it interesting, even if it’s just for ourselves,” he says of the project, which was recorded at McEwan’s home studio in and around Perth. “Like on Fleet Foxes’ “Helplessness Blues,” every song has an ending that is completely different than the first part. That was the idea here.”

Hence, distorted synths giving way to and then enveloping the lighter-waving riffage on opener “Terminus, The Creator,” a magnificent string section suddenly appearing on the nostalgic acoustic folk ditty “Dread and Butter” and a dizzying array of sounds linking arms on the title track, which imagines the proverbial creatures frolicking around a campfire in some far-off, mystical forest. “It feels jolly, but it’s also kind of terrifying and disturbing. My girlfriend told me she couldn’t listen to that song,” McEwan says of “Night Gnomes,” adding, “I’ve always liked how some Beatles songs just come out of nowhere, like “Mean Mr. Mustard.” This is our own little jingle that doesn’t fit with anything else on the record.”