NEXT EXIT

The BURNT NOODLE is back again in 2006. After some years Paul Lamb's project, now consisting of four musicians, is convincing with a new matured album - provided with a sense of humour. Basically it's a relaxed one - a fusion of spacey improvisations and westcoast psych folk with synth, organ and mellotron additions. The result of several day and night jams, spontaneously composed and created free of any commercial goals. With the help of some friends the recordings were edited and refined afterwards.

The album has a crazy start with Bipolar which is a suitable title. A short funny intro and bottleneck dobro are opening this fascinating piece which goes grooving after a while with weird guitar and voîce contributions. The song also has several breaks integrated - well done! The following ballad Day By Day with nice vocals and decent hammond you normally wouldn't expect from a jamming band but nevertheless it has nearly the makings of a hit for me. The long track On and on comes very relaxed with a jazzy touch pushed by the Rhodes piano just as it contains some dramatic and weird moments. Paul Lamb occupies the lead vocals and we have nice refrains for singing along. Road flick on the other hand is more cosmic ambient gliding with meandering electric guitars and mystic female voices.

The trippy Uncap your brain activates the obscure Noodle Choir and shows a mysterious performance by Reverend Ron who contributes spoken words before Jim meets the space aliens tells the epic story about ... Jim, of course, who is faced with some aliens which come to earth and try to contact our leaders. But they give up (!?), take Jim on board and nobody has seen him since ... This song is provided with a long languorous intro including cello and mellotron (cool!), gets tempo by and by culminating into the excellent last jamming minutes - accompanying the departure of Jim, I suppose.

As for a conclusion 'Next Exit' stimulates my appetite for more. It's a recommended psych album with some really good ideas which has its greatest magic potency in the first half.