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The Golden Animals - 'Free Your Mind And Win A Pony'

I’m in two minds about the art design chosen for the front cover of the Golden Animals brilliant (and kookily titled) debut ‘Free Your Mind And Win A Pony’. The double team of Tommy Eisner on guitar and vocals and drummer Linda Beecroft stare off at some otherworldly vision with expressions that seem to suggest either the attainment of a transcendent metaphysical understanding or mild constipation. I can’t decide which.

No such doubts linger about the music however, ‘Free Your Mind’ being the best rock debut I’ve heard in months. In circumstances that seem ideal for generating some decent rock mythology, the duo met on Swedish-born Beecroft’s first day in New York. Hitting it off, they undertook various wanderings until one day a woman who apparently possessed precognitive ability told the pair’s fortune, prompting the formation of the band. It was, we are to surmise, destined to be.

Although the band is based in Brooklyn, ‘Free Your Mind’ was recorded over five months under suitably psychedelic conditions in complete seclusion in the middle of the California desert. ‘Queen Mary (The Flop)’ presumably celebrates the source of some of the band’s inspiration, moving from elegant slide guitars into more frenzied territory. ‘Ride Easy’ meanders effortlessly along while ‘Follow Me Down’ sounds like it belongs on the soundtrack of a European Arthouse cowboy flick. Or Kill Bill II anyway.

As with such chaps as Hendrix, Morrison, Jagger and Garcia, the Golden Animals’ sound is the logical product of deeply immersing themselves in the blues of the 20s and 30s as well as such later variations of the form. Indeed, they pay homage to the early blues that was their chief inspiration with the inclusion of ‘Turn You Round (Don’t Let Nobody)’, based on Blind Willie and Kate McTell’s version. Their stripped back sound also recalls the White Stripes (they are a two piece after all). Eisner’s attractive baritone bears little resemblance to the inimitable yowling lyricism of Jack White however; in fact he sounds uncannily similar to Jim Morrison.

Back to that album cover though: it would quite possibly be reasonable to criticise the band for the over the top trappings that they’ve deployed to give themselves a healthy mystique. However, anyone who dismisses the Golden Animals as mere imitators of earlier blues-inspired rock groups will be making a grave error; ‘Free Your Mind’ is a vibrantly original response to what’s come before that just sounds killer all round.