THE CRYSTAL TEARDROP – The Crystal Teardrop… Is Forming (2025, LP, Popclaw Records) 

RELEASE INFO:

Label: Popclaw Records/Rise Above Records

Format: LP, Album, Limited Edition, Clear Vinyl (Diehard LP+A2 Poster+Exclusive), 100 copies

Format: LP, Album, Limited Edition, Cerise Vinyl, 150 copies

Format: LP, Album, Limited Edition, Black Vinyl, 250 copies

Release Date: 2 May 2025

Something shimmering has been gathering on the edge of the UK’s underground, an iridescent drop of sound, refracting the ghosts of the late sixties through a fresh, modern lens. Now, that crystal drop has finally fallen. The debut album “The Crystal Teardrop… Is Forming” by The Crystal Teardrop is a fully realized vision in full-spectrum analog color. The album arrives like a lost relic from an alternate 1968, cut direct to lacquer, alive with phasing, sitars, and swirling harmonies…

Formed in Stoke-on-Trent in early 2023, The Crystal Teardrop quickly emerged as one of the most vital forces in the new wave of British psychedelic garage rock. United by a shared obsession with the sights and sounds of the late 1960s, the band – Alexandra Rose (vocals, guitar), Leon Jones (guitar, sitar), Stuart Gray (keyboards, Mellotron), Ed Quigley (bass, vocals), and Huw Woodward (drums, percussion) – craft songs that shimmer between folk-rock delicacy and fuzz-driven propulsion. Working with producer Liam Watson (White Stripes, Electric Wizard) at Tilehouse Studios, they’ve forged a sound that feels both timeless and immediate. With their ecstatic live shows across the UK and Europe and now a dazzling debut LP on Rise Above/Popclaw, The Crystal Teardrop are here to reshape things it in their own kaleidoscopic image.

“The Crystal Teardrop… Is Forming” contains 12 tracks, equally divided on the 2 sides of the LP album. The opener “Colours Changing” is a perfect curtain-raiser with shimmering harmonies, melting fuzz, and a kaleidoscopic rhythm that feels like the floor shifting under your feet. On “Through With You”, Garage attitude meets Mod precision; a snarling fuzz riff punches through clouds of Hammond haze. “Borrowed Time” is a jangling 12-string glory with a wistful West Coast hue. “The Rain Parade” can be described as a storm of resolve and release, that hypnotic guitar figure drives forward as Alexandra’s voice cuts through like clear light after rain. “Two Hearts” is the meeting point where raga spirals and reversed drums weave together into a cosmic dance, romantic, hallucinatory, endlessly circling itself. Side “A” comes to an end with a tender comedown, “For One More Day”, acoustic shimmer, Mellotron sighs, and harmonies that ache with the beauty of something slipping away…

“Into The Unknown” opens Side “B” like a portal, sitar drones, Leslie-spun vocals, and the sense of stepping into another dimension barefoot. “Last Chance” is candy-coated power pop wrapped in psych gloss, urgent, euphoric, impossible not to move to. “Turn You Down” is a tough, punchy garage stomper with extra bite. The guitars snarl, the drums drive, and it all crackles with youthful defiance. “Stealing Suggestions” has dreamy organ swells and fluttering vocals, this is electric chemistry in sound form. The sparkle of a shared glance turned into melody. “Nine Times Nine” is a head trip of loops, phasing, and backwards shimmer—like falling through a mirror and enjoying the descent. The album comes to an end with a track drenched into phantasmagoria, “…Is Forming” – a definite highlight of the album – is an instrumental finale that feels like a spiritual takeoff, raga flourishes, deep resonance, and the sensation of everything coalescing into light, this is PSYCHEDELIA to the bone! A mind-bending/blending tune!

Like a prism catching the last rays of a long-lost sun, “The Crystal Teardrop… Is Forming” refracts memory, emotion, and pure sound into something at once familiar and otherworldly. Beneath the vintage tones and swirling effects beats a present, human heart — sincere, searching, and full of light. We saw them forming; now we’ll wait to see them growing — unfolding further into whatever strange and beautiful shapes their sound chooses next… (TimeLord Michalis)

Tracklist

Links

Listen through THE CRYSTAL TEARDROP Bandcamp

Get the album via RISE ABOVE RECORDS Web

Check THE CRYSTAL TEARDROP Facebook