Elf Power - Artificial CountrysideArtificial Countrysides is Athens, Ga based Elf Power's 14th album and first for Yep Roc Records The band expand their sound on this record to glorious effect, adding marimba, harpsichord, synth bass, distorted drum machine loops, and mellotron to their time tested mix of fuzz guitars, moog keyboards, pummeling drums, and layered acoustic guitars, achieving a satisfying and unique synthesis of traditional and futuristic sounds. Lyrically the album

surrounded by the decay of time that perpetually embraces us

Dirtbombs) and Kid Congo Powers(Gun Club

and has since been confirmed as a mandatory item in the band's remarkable discography

they took a step back and returned to the drawing board and went back to basics

like some wild horse

- The Besnard Lakes Are The Last of the Great Thunderstorm Warnings is a double LP

the other track

Some Lyrics Name A Time Or A Place

Don abandoned his signature pocket trumpet for the piano and harmonium

In the course of writing that song

through to the sophisticated song-craft of Sweetheart Mercury and the Nilsson-esque Sweet Old Sorry Me

Despite the shoddy work of bootleggers and impatient collectors