The band snaps wide awake with Clergymen.
The album sounds like the sort of surreal dreams the collective must have been having in the time leading up to last month’s release.
Clergymen plays like a version of Alice in Wonderland painted in pastel watercolors: bold ideas and bolder actions portrayed by a watchful eye and deliberate stroke of the hand — bright, but purposefully restrained.
The Electric Primadonnas bring a light, fun spin into their respective dips into dream pop (the deliciously dazed “The Bird”), freak folk (opener “Underpants,” moving in early moments like Merriweather Post Pavilion-era Animal Collective) and straight-up psychedelia (the mushroom-fed “The Night”).
The Primadonnas can recall anyone from Beach House and Pink Floyd (“Intuition”) to Grizzly Bear and Tame Impala (album highlight “I’m Not Certain Anymore”), even within the span of a couple of minutes. It’s the sort of impressive musical prowess and flexibility that is getting harder and harder to find.
It’s an impressive effort from first note to last, closing with the delightful one-two punch of the bouncy “Lucy Says” and mind-bending “What Is It to Be?,” a dream you’ll want to have again the second you wake.
Get a free listen at reverbnation.com/theelectricprimadonnas. —Joshua Boydston
This article appears in Jan 2-8, 2013.