Like their peers the Chills, the Moles’ gently psychedelic, impassioned indie-rock strayed into the elemental. Now reactivated around Australian founder Richard Davies after interest was rekindled by a 2014 compilation, the band’s first album in 20 years is glorious. With so much indie-rock now beholden to commercial formulas, it’s a joy to hear an album that embraces dissonance and does not sound desperate for radio play. That’s not to say Davies’s songs aren’t extremely, stupidly catchy – they are, but he frames them in the kind of sonic adventure that makes them sound thrillingly off-kilter. Walls of noise, a ticking clock and what sounds like a squeaky bicycle coexist with classy pop songwriting: Needle and Thread and Dreamland deliver bags of melodic gold. Are You Free Tomorrow? is gently beautiful, while Slings and Arrows and Head in the Speakers are defiant eulogies to the thrill of sublime, loud, exhilarating, transportive pop.
