Flying Saucer Attack - Coming Home

(Domino, 1997)

One more! “Coming Home” is a cover of a band called the Prisoners, done here in a very space-rock fashion, much like the Boston and Philly groups of the late ’90s, and not too far from what Spacemen 3 was up to in the early days. A terrific, repeating guitar part keeps the song in hypnotic head-nod territory while the ultra-basic toms and untreated voice give us a grittier and more human Flying Saucer Attack than we’ve heard in years past. And? Searing guitars and a languid tempo characterize the less satisfying “Hope,” which would exist as semi-aggressive filler on an LP had it been compiled – unlike all other FSA singles, these songs appear nowhere else, so you’d better pony up for this one if you want to walk proud among the Initiated.

After this, Pearce would put out one more album – Mirror – and then retire the group name, seemingly for good. As far as I know, there have only been his Clear Horizon collaboration with Jessica Bailiff and VHF’s officially-sanctioned tape-scrounging live/rehearsal CDR (PA Blues) since then. Even if it’s only gonna be further archival whatsit, let’s keep those fingers crossed for more releases in the years to come; FSA’s material didn’t vary too widely, but it was/is consistently satisfying and exhilarating stuff that hangs together awfully well – aesthetically? vision-wise? – as a body of dense, lo-fi, post-psych work. Where you at, Dave Pearce?! COME BACK!