Flying Saucer Attack - Soaring High

(VHF, 1993)

Flying Saucer Attack is one of my favorites, and the group certainly oughta sit near the top of any nerd-boy’s list of the great neglected psychedelic bands of the 1990s. It’s all about super-saturated guitar fuzz – which Dave Pearce pulls off in a quite pretty fashion, with surprisingly delicate melodies that are encased in layers of billowy (and sometimes harsh) effects/feedback. Pearce is also capable of standard psych-guitar heroics, as at the end of “Soaring High,” where he tears things up Bevis Frond-style while helping his cause with some aggressive stereo panning. These two early tracks push melody to the fore while maintaining noise-freak legitimacy, mixing Pearce’s folk and feedback inclinations more fully than much of the FSA work that soon followed. Those records tend to go for either gentler, voice- and acoustic-based space-balladry or neglect the prominent rhythm section heard here (check out the lumbering bass on “Standing Stone”) for high-volume, ambient distorto-float. The handy, world-ruling Distance CD compiles this and other early singles for those who can’t be bothered to hunt down the band’s many limited 7” releases.