BY ORDER OF THE MOOSE | VINYL RECORD (LP)

Welsh psych-pop band El Goodo return with their long awaited third album By Order Of The Moose, on Cian Ciaran's (Super Furry Animals) Strangetown Records. Recorded over the course of eight years in an old derelict cinema in their home village of Resolven, the album is a continuation of where the band left off in 2009 with their previous effort Coyote (2010). Wielding the wide open spaces of spaghetti westerns with the close melodic harmonies of girl groups and the good humor of Nuggets inspired garage rock n' roll, El Goodo takes you on a trip through their fascination with '60s music. Comprised of brothers Elliott (drums, percussion) and Jason Jones (guitar, vocals), Pixy Jones (guitar, vocals, keyboards), Lewie Sewers (guitar), Matthew Young (keyboards), and Andrew Cann (bass), El Goodo (named after a Big Star song) are a band enthralled by the past. They recorded the album on a 16-track with a small collection of faulty equipment, creating a collection of melodic pop songs, embellished with strings, brass, sitars, harmonicas, xylophones, and vocal harmonies (and then seemingly covered it all with dust), that you'd expect to find on some forgotten '60s record that someone has stumbled upon in their attic. Jason, who made the intricate cover illustration, seems to have interpreted the title to be more of a circus, depicting a wild west ringmaster, wild animals, and acrobats. From the first recording in November 2008 with the track "When", the album took eight years to complete. Initially thinking it would only take them a few months, they set out to record at The Music Box in Cardiff. Two years later they decamped back to their village, to the Resolven Miners' Welfare Hall. The first single "It Makes Me Wonder" is their interpretation of a '60s girl group song. The similarly titled opening track "Sit & Wonder" was an attempt to do something like Zager & Evans's "In The Year 2525", but it didn't turn out like that. The lyrics were based on war films like Come And See (1985), Ivan's Childhood (1962), and Red Dawn (1984). "So It Goes" was meant to be like a Marty Robbins cowboy song but ended up being more like a Nuggets track. "Susan And Bill" is a touching tribute to his parents.