The Black Hollies Casting Shadows by: Ed Butler Mon:28-Apr-08 Label: Earnest Jenning Year: 2008 WB rating 77 out of 100

Kids, don’t do drugs. They can cause permanent damage, turn you to harder stuff, and you’ll wind up a junkie eating cigarette butts out of discarded pot plants. But if you’re going to insist, take whatever it is The Black Hollies are taking, lock yourself in a small, dark room with a turntable, lava lamp, some Small Faces records and a guitar.

The psychedelic rock movement of the late 1960s was notable for the proliferation of an entire genre of music, growing out of Hendrix, LSD and Cream (Disraeli Gears is possibly the first ever psych-rock record, while Hendrix's addled dandyism is the missing link between hippy and psychedelia), becoming a new brand of hallucinogen-influenced pop. It burst into life in 1969 with the aforementioned Small Faces, as well as Pink Floyd's Piper at the Gates of Dawn, before morphing rapidly into the prog rock of King Crimson and, later, the equally British shoegaze movement.

And for some time it lay dormant, untouched, unfashionable, uncool. But, just recently, perhaps since The Coral's debut in 2002, psychedelia has made a comeback, and it was only a matter of time until it migrated across the Atlantic. Which brings us to New York's Black Hollies.

From the opening reverb-soaked, Pink Floyd-esque guitar strum, Casting Shadows is instantly, and routinely, familiar – all gentle tenor vocals, old-school overdrive pedals and rhythms alternating between Beatles twee and Zeppelin blues. Frontman, bassist and songwriter Justin Angelo Morey has clearly steeped himself in the period of the late '60s, possibly to the exclusion of any other musical influence. Often, when those toting spectacles of rosy hue punch out a record of chronologically-specific pop/rock there is a decided lack of anything to commend itself to the discerning ear, merely rehashed ideas and a dearth of variety.

However, Morey seems to have the ear for a tune as well as the songwriting chops to back up his limited vision, and Casting Shadows, the band's second release, after 2006s Crimson Reflections, is a collection of 10 well crafted bursts of psychedelic-tinged Britrock. Opener 'Whispers in the Forest's' wall of fuzzy noise coasts over the top of a smoothly rhythmic bass line, while 'Hamilton Park Ballerina' begins with the obligatory sitar before bursting into a classic call-and-response chorus featuring a Clapton-esque riff.

If there's one thing Casting Shadows is most certainly not lacking, it's cohesion. Songs shift from one to the other seamlessly, changes between tracks subtle and regular enough to maintain interest, always bringing attention back to the quality of the songwriting, and latterly, the musicianship. Drummer Scott Bolasci (who, sadly, has since left the group) pairs well with Morey in the rhythm section to provide a great deal of backbone for co-guitarists Herb Wiley V and Jon Gonelli's fuzzed-out flights of fancy.

Closing on the two highlights, first the inspired harmonica-blues of 'Running Through My Mind', and the drowsy closer (with bonus extra sitar) of 'Patient Sparrow', is a classy move, an indication of the band's willingness to adhere to the album format in a digital age of individual downloads, further evidence of their loyalty to a bygone era. The faithfulness of the recreation and the sheer enthusiasm the band has for their influences overrides any music industry cool-induced complaints. The rule book is well written, and these gents are good musical citizens.

It’s been done. A million times. Not least when it was first done in dingy London bars with red shag carpet on the walls. It’s been done better, by various exponents across the world. But when it’s done properly, as it is here, it’s still irresistible.