The Pocket Gods – In Search Of The Divine – LP review

Sadly it has been three years since my diary and The Pocket Gods coincided when I reviewed Come On England (No Nookie or Playstation) so it is with some relief that I am able to get on track with the 14 track 50 minute long LP – In Search Of The Divine. That delay isn’t anything to do with the band resting on their laurels as their prodigious output which when I first took a look at The Pocket Gods back in 2009 was already running up to 120 releases.

The Pocket Gods

The Pocket Gods

So it was with intrigue that I found myself and Mark  Christopher Lee in the same diary window and ever since I have been smiling like a Cheshire Cat.

Like a child opening their birthday presents I hit play to find – the title track – In Search Of  The Divine and despite the time lag even the Howard Hughes intro is a space I recognize and so we head in to the whirling mind that is The Pocket Gods seeking answers to The Meaning of Life, the Universe and Everything – with another lo-fi lift off in to space. I get the feeling on opener that in the intervening years there has been an even further drift in to the ether of psychedelia and if only all rockets could take off this smoothly.

Next we find – Monsters – as the folk shake wends it ways through the speakers and the rocket settles in to orbit and issues of space procreation come to the fore – as is so often the wont and already the satire arrives in the mix.

My Next High flows gently in to the room like a gentle summer Cumulus and does exactly in the mind as it says on the tin.

Bermuda Rectangular just has to raise a smile as The Pocket Gods add another side to the triangle as the first major signature sound newsreel arrives. This is familiar territory which once again plays to the ears so well for it pure ingenuity as the band pursues a favoured theme of UFOs.

The Seer follows with the strength of splayed guitar that I particularly enjoy of the band, alongside a Gregorian chant overlaid with instrument as opener and closer, one of the members seems to have become a dab hand on the Glockenspiel and as typical of The Pocket Gods regardless of  relevance this is going to feature through the LP. Such is the ability neither hand is overplayed and the ears are tantalised, but not annoyed.

Ub313 startles purely for its volume on such a subdued opener as the psychedelic maelstrom shatters like a bad trip on acid.

As quickly The Exorcist 3 Blues settles the nerves with a well – blues drive down the highway of life.

Danube finds us half way through the LP time-wise albeit on track 8 with the sounds of a Goan festival in which to settle back as we float around in space until we end with a gentle waltz.

JFK UFO is another mash-up newsreel in which The Pocket Gods reflect the intrigues of interstellar travel by Unidentified Flying Objects.

Sense finds the the band explaining their posit for the LP as Mark Christopher Lee proclaims of discordance and destabilisation and take the audience on the transient pursuit of the meaning of it all.

In Patagoni points a telescope from the space travel to planet earth seeking to spot whether connective tissues in the blue planet exists. Species, Geographics, politics and sex divided yet somehow interwoven.

The Duke Of Grantham continues to explore the divisions yet interconnectivity like a gently bubbling stew as the fat and sinew renders to gelatin creating a cohesion despite itself.

The penultimate track Find Me (captain of my soul) veers the sound back in to the floating spaces above with a continuing search for answers to the questions being asked perpetually by The Pocket Gods as the spacey travel of exploration is drawn one again gently towards the earth’s gravitational pull.

The conclusion of In Search Of The Divine sums up the question – there is no answer as Divine Collage takes all we have learnt in the intervening almost an hour and gently places the listen back on earth to wander in a daze from the spaceship that is The Pocket Gods in full LP flow.

A pleasure to make the re-acquaintance and  must get round to running an interview with Mark sooner rather than later.

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