Shine On, You Crazy Diamond

The fuzzy goodness of "Psychonaut" had just kicked in. It wasn't loud on the car stereo, but it was noticeable. My fifteen-year-old daughter and I were just about home. The wind had kicked up something ferocious outside the car, and we were at a stoplight underneath a big tree. It was the ideal place to hear the song.

"I never heard music made by aliens before," she said.

That is how she described the sounds of ET Explore Me. We were listening to the debut Voodoo Rhythm Records release, Shine, which was released 17 years after the band's first seven inch came out. Also interesting to note is the fact that Shine is the band's first full length album. Far too many bands are around 17 minutes before they do that sort of thing. 17 years, however, is apparently just enough time to release a near perfect album of psychedelic punk, organ distortion music from the Netherlands. The fact that it came out in February of this year makes it a love letter to music fans, too. That's all kinds of treats going on for your ears.

Of the dozen songs on the release, it's the first, "Let Me In," that gives listeners a taste right from the start of what they are in for. It is just the right way to start an album, and at times sounds like it is a soundtrack to a Sixties horror comedy like The Munsters. I am not kidding one bit, either. If you hear that and don't think that, you can write to me and complain. In fact, I insist you do. Eleven songs later ... and all of them sound just a bit different from the others ... and you realize that for 17 years you had no idea this band was out there making this amazing sound. It's the type of thing that makes you wonder what else is lurking about.

Now you know ... and knowing is half the battle.