Dolly Rocker Movement: Our Days Mind the Tyme

A quick peek at Australian fivesome the Dolly Rocker Movement’s album titles gives a pretty good idea of where these guys’ heads are at: 2006’s two-fer Electric Sunshine and Purple Journey Into the Mod Machine and the new Our Days Mind the Tyme (released in ’09 by Australian label Off the Hip; now seeing U.S./U.K. release on Bad Afro) could easily have been nicked from a Fading Yellow or Rubble psychedelic ’60s comp. DRM’s in the here and now — at least according to the calendar — though in its mind it’ll always be 1968. Opener “The Only One” is psychedelic drone, though with a light touch, and prickly guitar; “A Sound for Two”, a waltz fueled by violin and harpsichord, nails the old-school psych aesthetic in a way its present-day peers often miss: There’s more to this stuff than just a Hammond organ and a fuzzbox. DRM has done its homework, and even mix things up with some surf/horror-garage vibes on “Coffin Love” and “Memory Layne” (surely Arnold’s regrettably named cousin), respectively. If you’re allergic to psychedelic purple pronouncements (“In the darkest night / I can see you through the hands of time”), you’ll need to steer clear, but the rest of us have a new, reliable psych fix.