Drugdealer

Raw Honey

Mexican Summer/Southbound

This, the second album by Drugdealer – a name given to a project helmed by late-blooming wunderkind Michael Collins – is another clever selection of Record Collection Pop; songs you could fool yourself into thinking you’re sure you’ve heard before. A trace of Beach Boys here, some summer 70s feel-good daze there. But actually it’s just Collins and mates (Weyes Blood on the broodingly gorgeous mope of opening song-proper Honey, Mac Demarco on production duties).

There’s a thread of psych-rock flowing through this; a less belligerent Anton Newcombe almost, a more talented/easily palatable Ariel Pink perhaps.

And just pop-gem atop pop-gem, the Todd Rundgren-like Lonely, the Ben Folds-meets-Beatles pop-perfection of Lost In My Dream. Just as you feel this album might be all 60s/70s in straight-faced recollection, the vibe starts to drift towards the 80s also. But there’s a song on here that is so Jeff Lynne-aping-John Lennon it sounds more ELO than nearly anything ELO ever managed, and most certainly more Beatles-y than anything ELO managed (If You Don’t Know Now, You Never Will). Actually maybe it’s the great John Lennon solo track Paul McCartney never got to write, or is it vice-versa? 

You can have fun deciding.

You can have even more fun playing this for your friends and telling them it’s the latest 4MenWithBeards-type “deep dive” reissue. Almost anyone would believe you.

Deep in the piece we get Wild Motion which sounds like if Todd Rundgren joined Wings for the mere folly of it.

This week I love this record. Last week I did too. Week before that as well. I’ll hate it at some point. Then I reckon I’ll love it again.

So both its triumph and downfall, essentially, is that it’s far too fucking clever. But you could love it for the “Vintage Drum Sound”-setting warmth of its production. And I reckon that this is so slyly ironic as to be almost damn-near authentic-af.
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