COSMIC KANGAROOS – … less grounded… (2025, LP Lollipoppe Shoppe Records) 

RELEASE INFO:

Label: Lollipoppe Shoppe Records

Format: LP, Album, Limited Edition, Clear Vinyl (including inserts with lyrics), 200 copies

Format: LP, Album, Limited Edition, Clear Hand-Numbered Vinyl (featuring special “cosmic silver lettering” on the front cover and including inserts with lyrics), 100 copies

Release Date: 30 May 2025

This Ol’ cosmic gang of Psychedelians, established in 1986, is back with a new release with new, old, and very old songs of theirs. In 2022, Lollipop Shoppe Records re-released Cosmic Kangaroos’ 1998 2-track LP album “… improvise!” (check my review) and now is about to release a new set of songs entitled “… less grounded…” and yes, your imagination just ran to the right musical soundscape, but let’s have a look at label’s informative press release:

“At last, the Lollipop Shop can present a new LP by the Cosmic Kangaroos! Before this, the Cosmic Kangaroos released a record with two long improvised tracks, which came out in 1999, and the last album of songs, even dates back to 1993. But make no mistake, the Cosmic Kangaroos have been around continuously since the summer of 1986. So, before anyone gets the wrong idea: This is no “re-union album”. But it also means that for this album Mecky, Kermit, and Groucho Kangaroo had to choose songs from a period of almost 39 years of writing music together – no easy task, to say the least. On the other hand, playing together that long made the band a unit that almost works as one musical mind – which made recording new material and re-visiting older songs a lot of fun. The band now has its own recording equipment, allowing them to experiment and gather ideas at their own pace. This relaxed approach lets them work over a longer period of time to develop their sound. In the end, eight songs have been chosen for this LP to show the different facets of psychedelic music the Cosmic Kangaroos stand for: focused and hard-driving psych-songs, traditional west-coast-style psychedelia with longer impro passages as well as some garage punk thrown in for good measure. Apart from the music, the album features original artwork by graphic artist Christian Witt. The LP (+ download-code) will be released in a limited edition of 300 copies on clear vinyl, whilst the first 100 hand-numbered copies will feature a special “cosmic silver lettering” on the front cover”… 

Just for the record, The Cosmic Kangaroos are Mecky Kangaroo on guitar, lead and backing vocals, bouzouki, bass, Kermit Kangaroo on bass, keyboards, guitar, backing vocals, and Groucho Kangaroo (Skalar, Ship of Ara) on drums, lead and backing vocals. 

Here are a few words by the band:

“Dear Listeners

If Cosmic Cangaroos is a new band for you, well, hello! And welcome aboard!

If you have known Cosmic Kangaroos for all those years, then this is the album you’ve been waiting for for the last 32 years (!). Yeah – and we’ve been waiting that long, too! This is our first full-length studio album with songs since “Quake Moon Spook”.

Cosmic Kangaroos have existed for quite some time now, keeping a low profile (looks like we’re masters of that). We kind of got on with life: jobs, families, those things. There were years when we simply met regularly to jam and rehearse. So, there is a lot of material that only very few people have heard so far. Over the last years, we set up our own studio and learned how to use it. And it wasn’t easy to choose the songs for “Less Grounded” from the large catalogue of songs that had piled up since 1986. Some of the songs here could have been recorded shortly after “Quake Moon Spook” (back then we made plans for an album called “Snakesong” which didn’t happen), and others have been written recently. We think it’s a good mix of what our music is about. Playing this music is still great fun for us – and we hope you enjoy listening to it”… 

“… less grounded…” consists of 8 tracks, equally divided on the 2 sides of the LP album, and it kicks off in a rather heavy way with “The Air From Above The Mountains”, with a kind of tribal drumming and slightly Middle Eastern inspired guitar sounding, you can tell by the very first second that the “flirt” with the Heavy West Coast Psychedelic side of the late 60s is more than strong and pretty much promising! Bands like Mind Garage or Mad River walk by through my mind as potential influences, over here… “Traffic In The Nightsky” is a slower track that has its own trippy dynamic, Neil Young and his ‘68 Buffalo Springfield come to mind, this is an electric guitar-based balladesque tune with a cool energetic rhythm section. “Up In The Air (And Falling)” is a hard-driven punk-a-delic track, forceful, a must-be-played-LOUD track, and if you want to get an idea of what it’s all about, I can compare it with the dynamics of a Dead Moon track… “Walls” is a mid-tempo Rock song, becoming upbeat at times, a track deeply inspired by the British Hard Rock early 70s. Side “B” opens with “(I Don’t Trust The) Writing On The Wall”, a cool track with an interesting electric guitar sound inspired by the late 60s Acid Rock and the early 70s Hard Rock. The following “Shortest Way” is my highlight here, just imagine a mutated hybrid of “? And The Mysterians” that is blended with some jammy West Coast Acid-Rock, to get an idea. Of course, the track is “under the influence of Psychedelics”, and yes, this is the most “less grounded” track in this album, and I don’t need to mention the trippy mind-blowing keys section that literally melts your brain!!! “Everyday Sleepwalk (Get In The Car)” is a groovy, fast, and garage-flirting 2:43 song with a fantastic rhythm that kind of reminds me of  “Bad Moon Rising” for some unexplained reason. Eventually, the album comes to an end with “Room Full Of Insects”, a laid-back, kind of sing-along tune, balladesque with a strong reminiscent sense, a feel you get when a journey is over… So, if for some unexplained reason you missed them back in the day, here’s your chance to rediscover them, the Cosmic Kangaroos have landed safely… less grounded… but more Psychedelically trippy… Invest… TimeLord Michalis        

Tracklist

Links

Listen / Buy through LOLLIPOPPE SHOPPE Bandcamp

Alternatively, get it via SHINY BEAST Mailorder