Without a website to call their own and little in the way of biographical information, The Pocket Gods are already an enigma and that's without hearing this rather oddball album which seems to be as much about artistic statements as it is about music itself. In its most coherent moments there are shades of early Lush ('The President Is Dead') or fellow Leeds outfit The Pale Saints (the glistening guitars and ghostly atmosphere of 'For Poets And Fools'). Yet most of the time, there's a acute sense of depression and an obsession with absinthe occasionally broken up by moments of clarity like the stark piano of 'Numb' or the seedy glam of 'All Roads Lead To Sorrow'. Then finally, just when it appears the group are at their lowest emotional ebb, they surprise with the sunny, trippy melody of 'Kind A Mood' which is ended by a united, giggled cry of "Badgers!". Before that comes along, though, it feels like being an onlooker at an art-rock funeral.
Without a website to call their own and little in the way of biographical information, The Pocket Gods are already an enigma and that's without hearing this rather oddball album which seems to be as much about artistic statements as it is about music itself. In its most coherent moments there are shades of early Lush ('The President Is Dead') or fellow Leeds outfit The Pale Saints (the glistening guitars and ghostly atmosphere of 'For Poets And Fools'). Yet most of the time, there's a acute sense of depression and an obsession with absinthe occasionally broken up by moments of clarity like the stark piano of 'Numb' or the seedy glam of 'All Roads Lead To Sorrow'. Then finally, just when it appears the group are at their lowest emotional ebb, they surprise with the sunny, trippy melody of 'Kind A Mood' which is ended by a united, giggled cry of "Badgers!". Before that comes along, though, it feels like being an onlooker at an art-rock funeral.
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