Soul, Glitter & Sin (Remastered)

Thee Hypnotics are a British band whose style and material harks back to the psychedelic rock side of the sixties, filled with swirling layers of grunge and whining Farfisa and B-3 organ sounds balanced on crashing drums. The music is moody, dark and dense, prone to working up to an intense pitch and then sliding back down again to catch its breath before plunging into some other shadowy area. There are moments when the trip is filled with déjà vu — parts of "Cold Blooded Love," for example, echo early Pink Floyd, spooky when you hear the drum tones and fills used by Phil Smith. It's a sonic amalgam that's both easy and difficult to define — there's so much tucked into the music that one becomes reluctant to try a single pigeonhole. Psychedelic swamp rock? It's that, certainly. "Samedi's Cookbook" is a slow bayou dance that makes terrific lights-out listening, all spooky mystery. On the other hand, there are also numbers that are driven by a kicking horn section, and an album-opening powerhouse rocker. Thee Hypnotics may be tough to define, overall, but the truth is that they're a great rock band that hasn't locked itself into one modern format — instead, they're content to keep working out to the edges, as they should.