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ESSENTIAL NEW MUSIC

Essential New Music: Brian Jonestown Massacre’s “Third World Pyramid”

It’s long past the band’s supposed feud with Portland’s Dandy Warhols. (Although how great is it that the opening track on this record is called “Good Mourning,” à la the Dandys circa 1997, sounding nothing like them whatsoever?) In fact, it’s Brian Jonestown Massacre’s 15th full-length release, an almost incomprehensible fact when you consider how consistently fine its output has been over two decades. And the band is absolutely none the worse for wear.

Leader Anton Newcombe lives and works in Berlin these days, and Third World Pyramid, like its recent predecessors, is yet another gorgeous, quasi-psychedelic slice of the band’s kaleidoscope-eyes popcraft, with Newcombe and longtime associates Ricky Maymi, Joel Gion, Collin Hegna, Dan Allaire and some new faces (Emil Nikolaisen of Norway’s Serena-Maneesh, Tess Parks and Katy Lane) bringing to near 20 the number of folks past and present who’ve comprised the BJM at any point in time. This matters not a jot—Newcombe’s beautifully woolly creation has always been his baby, and jams such as “Like Describing Colors To A Blind Man On Acid” are the perfect representation of what these guys have always majored in: setting a hall of mirrors on fire, then playing while it burns.

—Corey duBrowa