Pond: Hobo Rocket – review

Including two current members of Tame Impala and one ex-member in Nick Allbrook, Aussie band Pond are a slightly jokier but no less productive relation to their more successful alter ego. Allbrook recently described their fifth album (since 2009, with another already in the can) as being suitable for "weddings, bar mitzvahs and falling backwards off not quite fatally high balconies". Don't try that at home, but they certainly provide something for every occasion as Hobo Rocket rampages through psychedelia, funk, 70s soft rock, grunge and even a shuffle rhythm in sprawling opener Whatever Happened to the Million Head Collide. It doesn't all hang together – sometimes there are just too many ideas jostling for supremacy and Aloneaflameaflowe gradually gets lost in a garage haze. They're at their best when they ease off and allow their psychedelic majesty to shine through in the lovely, thoughtful Midnight Mass (At the Market Street Payphone), the rhythmically building Giant Tortoise or the sublime standout Oh Dharma, which floats on a fluffy cloud for five becalming and blissful minutes.