(2020) Extraa - Baked


Review:
Extraa‘s gauzy, sweet-as-honey-pie brand of psychedelic pop is influenced heavily by the orchestrated sound of Beatles ballads and the chamber pop intricacy of groups like the Idle Race and Left Banke. On their debut, Baked, the group make an impression through slightly devious means. They don’t knock the listener over the head with shiny hooks or catchy choruses — instead they sneak in sideways using texture and mood to capture hearts and minds. The tempos hover in the midrange level; the instrumentation is rich and relies on gentle pianos, strings, and vocal harmonies to fill in the space in autumnal hues; and singer Alix Lachiver sings in calmly melancholy fashion. Baked is an extremely peaceful and pleasant album with no sharp edges; it works like a balm on jangled nerves, distorted realities, and anxious feelings. It’s the kind of record that’s a perfect soundtrack for turning off cares and worries and floating downstream as the music makes everything alright. Within the steady flow of meditative sounds, there are some strong melodies that stick — like the stately “Petit Ami” or “A Flower and a Man,” which sounds like a baby Rain Parade song — and a couple tracks that up the tempo a little without breaking the bubble. “Bad Dreams” adds a little boost of indie pop energy and “Strangers” is a fine nugget of jangly folk-rock with a little Motown rhythmic underpinning. These tracks, plus the dramatic, ’50s pop-inspired “Darling Valentine,” give a second dimension to the album and show that the band don’t just sound good when they are wiping the sleep out of their eyes, but also when they are wide awake. Baked is a first step and Extraa are definitely a name to watch for fans of gentle psych-pop played with precision and care.





Tracklist:



Media Report:
Genre: indie-pop, psychedelic rock
Source: CD
Format: FLAC
Format/Info: Free Lossless Audio Codec, 16-bit PCM
Bit rate mode: Variable
Channel(s): 2 channels
Sampling rate: 44.1 KHz
Bit depth: 16 bits