The Cuckoo Clocks Frontiers of a Seductive Mind

The psychedelic allure of the West Coast sound runs deep into the soul of every flower child that never realised that the wave rolled back. The quintessential naiveté of this genre, a cocktail of folk infused with heavy-duty LSD, finds resistance in a cynical world. I suspect The Cuckoo Clocks know this, but chose to ignore it anyway.

There’s plenty of room for this genre nowadays. The futons were slashed to create makeshift pillows. The thick incense smoke is pleasant, not an acrid, phenol-heavy aroma that becomes pungent. The album begins. Frontiers of a Seductive Mind opens with the peppy ‘Be The One’, a Moody Blues flavoured hit. So far, it’s flower power again. Stay away from Leary.

Here’s the twist: where once this sound was ingrained with optimism, there’s an undercurrent of dark realisations throughout this album. ‘Before The Dawn’ searches for self-affirmation, ‘Here It Comes’ revisits dark memories in dilapidated houses of memory, and ‘Release The Storm’ reflects on the end of brighter times.

It's odd that there’s this feeling of finality through Frontiers of a Seductive Mind. There’s an element of 'goodbye' once the album is finished. By no means is this an album of contradictions. On the contrary, a pensive ‘Older Than The Sun’ is a great counterargument to the sunnier disposition of ‘Look Again’ or the vertiginous ‘Broken Stone’. A bittersweet contrast that paints a dry brown desert with vivid colours, beckoning optimism again.