It can be troubling when indie boys decide to go a bit psychedelic. One too many Doors records, some herbal medicine from their mate Ravey Davey, a tie-dye t-shirt later and they’re declaring it the next summer of love and scouring the phone book for sitar players.

Thankfully, Oxford shoegazers Orange Vision get the balance between trippy atmospherics and garage band swagger just about right. Sure, they take a step through the looking glass and get lost in waves of echoey reverb and Beatlesy guitar breaks, but that’s backed by swooning, quiffy romanticism and an arch, barbed edge that helps them retain more than a trace of boisterous, boys-in-the-band spirit.

“I don’t wanna be here anymore/How well I know there must be something more” croons heavy-hearted front-man Edmund Quigley on new single ‘Dark Around The Eyes’. Full of bookish introspection and dreamy, wandering melodies, the track momentarily feels like Belle and Sebastian being possessed with Klaxons’ nu-wave, glow stick euphoria, before drifting out in a haze of ’80s new wave fist pumping.

Palma Violets and Tame Impala could be close sonic contemporaries, but there are also familiar nods to bands like Love, T-Rex and even The Cure, and the lads are steadily being talked up by BBC new music gurus Huw Edwards and Steve Lamacq.

‘Dark Around The Eyes’ is released 31 August, and you can catch Orange Vision headlining the Oxford O2 Academy 2 on 25 September.

 

Kevin Irwin
@trotterfist