Rajan

For the first decade-plus of their existence, Night Beats albums followed a basic template of blues-bitten garage rock that could be polished up or left rough and ready, but it was always basically the same. 2023s Rajan blows up the template in all sorts of ways. Not only are there few tracks that sound like anything the group has done before, the whole record has a loose and dreamy feel that dips further into psychedelia of all sorts and hijacks a few more modern styles as well. The basic idea here seems roughly the same as that of Monte Carlo, the record the bands Danny Lee Blackwell made in 2022 with guitarist Carolina Faruolo. Working under the name Abraxas, the pair conjured up a sound that spanned the globe in search of the trippiest influences they could find, running from Turkish psych to dub and grafting on funk and Latin rhythms. Rajan doesnt dip into the Latin angle; instead, Blackwell applies a similarly layered, reverb-heavy sound to modern blues and garage rockers, funk, and even some R&B along with the psych. Any fan of Night Beats who hadnt heard the Abraxas album might be a little shocked at the new sound, maybe even wondering where the sharp edges of their previous work went. Blackwell even moves his snarling, snapping vocals into the backseat, save a few tracks, like the rollicking "Motion Picture," where he cuts through the rolling waves of sound. Its also one of the few tunes that relies on classic song structure for its impact; the rest of the record is about creating a mood. Whether its the strutting Anatolian psych of "Hot Ghee," the midtempo space boogie of "Anxious Mind," the rippling soundtrack funk of "Osaka," or the melancholy doo wop dub of "Cautionary Tale," this is an album thats about sound and texture most of all. Also, guitar solos. Blackwell proves himself to be adept at unspooling long, drifting lines that surf through the mix like gold medal winners as well as spiky little riffs and billowing puffs of sound. Rajan is a guitar lovers dream much in the way that albums by Unknown Mortal Orchestra or King Gizzard are. No showing off or pointless meandering, just super-cool sounds, interesting effects, and parts that fit perfectly into the weird and wonderfully intricate whole. Rajan might not quite reach the top rank of modern psych albums -- "Nightmare" hews a little too closely to blues cliches and the occasional bit of editing could have been done when the tracks started to drift too much -- but Blackwell has made a strong and never less than interesting step in that direction. Even if he swings back to the more well-known Night Beats formula, this will stand as a fun experiment at the very least. ~ Tim Sendra