THE WIND, THE WAVES, THE CLOUDS

Italian band Red Sun have been around for a few years now, delivering tasty albums of very unique and colourful instrumental pieces, with their latest their strongest achievement so far. The guitar/bass/drums trio could be labelled everything from stoner, psychedelic, prog and space rock, but their approach to those genres here is more refined, a very mellow and melodic one, and with a title like `The Wind, The Waves, The Clouds', it should come as no surprise to find that it's a very dreamy, warm and chilled-out set.

Wisps of snowy feedback and cooling winds softly blow throughout lead track `Artic Wind' as gradually emerging electric guitar jangles grow in stature and intensity around slinking bass and sturdy drumming urging the piece ever onwards. The band blast the listener with heavy bursts and soloing guitar grooves laced with a toasty summer vibe, and it proves a very propulsive and infectiously powerful opener. There's lots of nice chiming guitar rises throughout `Hidden Currents' almost reminding of fellow Italian spacerockers Il Giardino Onirico in fleeting moments with the crunchier heavier attacks and subtle humming keyboards, `The Clouds' skilfully reprises dramatic chiming guitar melodies to catchy effect (cool Hawkwind-like spacey vacuum in the final minute too, fellas!), and `Holy Mountains' flirts with a Maserati/`Rehumanizer'-like Eighties-flavoured sleekness, and they even work in a Jah-kissed spoken-word proclamation!

The delicate and dreamy ringing guitar wisps and pattered percussion of the flip side's `The Jagged Coast Of Wales' (6:04) are punctured with strident bursts (courtesy of guest guitarist Riccardo Cavitos Cavicchia from super proggy Italian psych band Da Captain Trips) and a muscular finish. The mysterious yet confident `Aurora' leaps back and forth in tempo with guitars switching from vibrant strums to wailing squalling tantrums alongside whirring synths and a deeply spacey finale, and the closer `Waves Of Sand' is a compactly written soothing come-down of ringing guitar tendrils, sweetly murmuring bass and seductive drumming that carefully rises in power and a hint of grit.

If you're after a heavier stoner-slab assault, a prog-rock blowout or brooding space-rock atmosphere at its most undiluted, you won't find that here. Instead, Red Sun simply prefer to take you on a laid-back journey of restraint and subtlety, pepper it with ample moments of power and finesse, and deliver an album with infectious energy and cool playing while doing so. `The Wind, The Waves, The Clouds' is an endlessly addictive light and tightly composed psychedelic trip, proving very easy to constantly replay and float away with, and it only hints at the even bigger and better things the band will get to in the future.

Four stars.