Funny Creature Lane

Jennifer Gentle are really starting to gel as a group on their second album in, the four-piece taking the promising rough psych prog nuttiness of I Am You Are and making merry with as much stuff as possible. The instrument listing in the liner notes shows that much — credits range from vacuum cleaner and double eggs to bottles and tubular bells. It's one thing to have all that, and it is another thing to use it well, and quite happily they do. From initially being the shadow of Gorky's Zygotic Mynci, the quartet are starting to pull equal to them, as such maddeningly nutball songs as "Ultraviolet Lady Opera," and especially the ten-minute freakout "Couple in Bed by a Green Flashing Light," demonstrate. Fasolo again makes for a sweetly deranged frontman, twisting his voice into a variety of different ways — gibbering chipmunk on the opening spree of "My Memories' Book," winsome but not entirely there boulevardier on "Mad House," squirrelly, chopped-up choir on "The Stammering Ghost." Then there's the joint vocals on "Oui, C'est Moi!," which calls to mind the disturbing image of castrati munchkins having sucked down too much helium and Reddi-Whip. If everything was a constant party, perhaps things would be a bit much, but there's calmer moments abounding that are no less off-kilter, like the acoustic guitar/violin semi-lament (perhaps) of "Wondermarsh" or the gentle piano wooziness of "Floating Fraulein," possibly the band's sweetest moment yet. What's really great about Funny Creatures Lane is its sheer joie de vivre — it's freaky, to be sure, but a fun freaky, unforced and giddy. More than once there's the hint of what many of the Elephant 6-associated bands are trying for in America, but somehow Jennifer Gentle make everything that much more truly entertaining, silly smiles all around.