The Vickers
Love You To / See Me Jumping On The Stars
Ongakubaka Records

We got an offer from Florence to have a close encounter with the new single by The Vickers. It can be downloaded for free from the Ongakubaka home site. I didn't manage the task, but fortunately there is a video version of the single's A-side on YouTube. This is the band's third single. They released the album Ghosts a year ago and there is another Beatles' cover version, "She Said, She Said", available on the band's home pages (sound) and YouTube (both sound and vision) from 2012. Like "Love You To" it is nicked from the Fab Four's 1966 album Revolver.

The Vickers' home page tells us that the band is 'influenced by the immortal 60?s melodies mixed with a touch of 90?s spleen'. "Love You To" is certainly a proof of that. The original George Harrison Indian influenced song is not the most obvious heavy electric psychedelic track off Revolver, less so than "She Said, She Said". But The Vickers have churned and stretched it into a psychedelic space rock goodie, using floating elements from Lennon's greatest achievement off the same album "Tomorrow Never Knows" and initially even some short interstellar guitar sounds resembling the start of Pink Floyd's second single and psychedelic gem "See Emily Play". Especially the trippy guitar playing is tremendous in the long instrumental passages, though I think that floating dynamic push throughout might have worked even better if the pace had been slowed down just a little bit. Anyway, it sounds great! Miles ahead of The Vickers' "She Said, She Said"-version that is left behind like a carbon copy paper'ish Beatles cover in comparison. And the vocals almost sound as if George Harrison was still alive...

A great appetizer for the forthcoming Vickers tour of the European mainland and Britain that will start at home in Firenze on the very evening of the May full moon. The B-side of the single "See Me Jumping On The Stars"...? Well, I guess I have to await the physical 7 inch vinyl version, soon to be released.

Copyright © 2015 JP