The sixties were fucking weird, man. Sure, I wasn’t alive to recount the first-hand experience but I feel like it’s pretty unanimous to say that decade had more than its fair share of oddities that’s enough to make for one hell of a fucking acid trip. Not many bands can tackle the content the decade had in an acceptable fashion, but leave it to the weird world of psych rock (a style partly straight out of the 60s oddly enough) to create a retrospective album to create some that’s both funky and a darkly lit world of psychedelia.

The act known as Jess and the Ancient Ones isn’t really a new name in the world anymore as devout followers of anything occult rock will find the name to be a very familiar one, and those who don’t know of this Finnish band had better start digging as they’re not a group to sleep on. Yet, as time goes on the desire to do something different may come along, and that definitely seems to have come to pass for this band as their latest opus, “The Horse and Other Weird Tales”, takes a lighter tone compared to previous efforts. Shedding their edgier sound, Jess and the Ancient Ones go for a much smoother sound that’s very reminiscent of psych rock yet so much more. It’s so much more that I refuse to even try and put it into words as I’ll undoubtedly fail, but somehow it all comes together perfectly to allow “The Horse and Other Weird Tales” to become nine songs of a strange psychedelic blur like few others. Whether it be catchy trips like “Your Exploding Heads”, captivating journies like “You and Eyes”, or a mixture of both like “(Here Comes) The Rainbow Mouth”, Jess and the Ancient Ones created a record that practically has it all and all is extremely tasty in every single way.

“The Horse and Other Weird Tales” captures that classic sound perfectly while portraying the dark side of a decade in ways that very few bands even think to take on. That alone makes this band stand out amongst the rest, but it’s the whole of this record that shows Jess and the Ancient Ones truly aren’t fucking around as they’ve made an album that’s not only dark and slightly off-putting but very fun to boot. Right there is a combination that’s not commonly dosed properly, but this time it’s done seemingly effortlessly.

LISTEN to “The Horse and Other Weird Tales” on Bandcamp here.

LIKE Jess and the Ancient Ones on Facebook here.