THE HONEY POT – The Happiness Explosion (2024, 2LP Billywitch) 

RELEASE INFO:

Label: Billywitch

Format: 2LP, Album, Limited Edition, 100 copies

Release Date: 20 Nov 2024

Well, it may take them (The Honey Pot) 3 years to release a new album but they’re back with 83 minutes of new music, 17 tracks that are divided into the four sides of a double LP album! Billywitch (The Honey Pot’s label) says about it:

“They are back! The Westcountry’s finest psych combo – The Honey Pot have recorded a new double LP. “The Happiness Explosion” is their first album of new material for three years and is 80 plus minutes of the Honey Pot’s blend of psych and rock. It’s available as a very limited two record set. Released on 20th November in an edition of 100 copies on the Billywitch label it’s also available as an unlimited digital download. 

The Honey Pot were formed in 2012 as a five piece band playing a blend of ’60s psyche that has its boots in the past but its head in the future. Drawing on that unique English inheritance of the surreal and the strange, but not afraid to indulge in an American West-Coast style adventure, they purvey a warm brew of hazy recollections and black penny grooves…” 

The Honey Pot are Crystal Jacqueline (vocals, keyboards), Icarus Peel (vocals, guitars, synths), Andy Budge (bass, synths), and David Penna (drums) while in this album we have 2 guest appearances, Nigel Wayne (sax) and Curtley the Cat (backing vocals). So, let’s have a short look at the 17 stylistic Psych-Rock songs of “The Happiness Explosion”. There’s a cool instrumental psychedelic intro on the opening track “Desert Song” that slowly becomes a relaxing Popsike-delicious track sung by both Icarus and Jacqueline. “Chelsea Bred” is a groovy song with a Soul-ish edge, “Behind The Sun” shines with its lovely psych-rock vibes, “Sunshine” with its trippy organ “transmits” some cool Californian sunshine, “Stuck In Starless Beauty” is a modern Psych Rock tune with cool Proggy keys, “Lagertha” is a balladesque slow piece of beauteous psych, while the next one which is called “Victoria” is my personal favorite, it’s trippy, psyche-delicious with mind-bending hotkeys that turns out as a supreme Proggy Psych tune! Cool! “The Happiness Explosion”, “Please Let Me In”, and “The Otherworld” are tracks that perfectly unfold the unique idiosyncratic Pop-Psych style of The Honey Pot band. “One Golden Afternoon” is a nostalgic Psych-Pop ballad while another highlight follows, “The Mushroom And The Peach”, a brilliantly incredibly fantastic Neo-Psych proggy track while “The Green Procession” blends a little Prog, a little Pop, and a little Psych. “Clouds Behaving Oddly” is a cool and kind of trippy Psych balladesque tune, “Sunday’s Child” is another psych pop-soul track while “The Sound” (another highlight) is a poppy psyche-delicious song with an interesting PSYCH middle section. The album, finally, comes to an end with “How Was That For You?”, an experimental spacey poppy instro! So, The Honey Pot delivered to the world another splendid delicate psych-pop-rock album, both qualitative and quantitative! Dig it… TimeLord Michalis

Tracklist

Listen/Buy MEGA DODO Bandcamp

Visit THE HONEY POT Facebook

Check THE HONEY POT Bandcamp