Hypnolovewheel

  • Hypnolovewheel
  • Turn! Turn! Burn! (Fabian Aural Products) 1988 
  • Candy Mantra (Fabian Aural Products) 1990 
  • Space Mountain (Alias) 1991 

A fine quartet originally from Long Island, Hypnolovewheel carry a kinda avant-garage ethos into all sorts of unexpected places. Refusing to be pinned down to any one stylistic board, the group wiggles around through a wide array of psychedelic pop, punk and garage-mush puddles. That they’re able to do so without seeming like a bunch of lost ponies is testament to their ability to create a genuinely cordial mix of low-ball guitar-rant and tossed-off melodic hooks. (Hypnolovewheel’s music bears textural similarities to the Embarrassment.) When they come up with something that’s potentially too catchy, Dave Ramirez and Steve Hunkins bury it under a small load of six-string noise.

As a tendency to write funny lyrics has been tempered with age, all of the band’s records are easily commendable to hepsters and squares alike. Nice, a-generic, non-flash all-purpose pop-noise is a too rare commodity these days.

[Byron Coley]