Pond ‘Man It Feels Like Space Again’

Words by Dennis Ruhlin

Let’s get one thing straight from the start. This isn’t Tame Impala, despite having a damn near identical line up over the last few years. Pond is the strange, acid rock stepchild to Tame Impala, and their music, while technically similar, couldn’t be farther apart.

Pond’s latest album Man It Feels Like Space Again isn’t exactly the most user-friendly thing you’ll ever listen to. Even compared to their earlier work, it’s a bit much. The opening track “Waiting Around For Grace” really kicks ass once it gets going. It’s raw, it’s got that good 90’s sound, it gets a little weird, and the riffs get your hips moving in a ‘let’s take acid and go party’ kinda way. Another stand out track is “Zond”, a fast trip to outer space in a party rocket filled with grungy hipsters parading as Bowie wannabes during the chorus. It’s kind of bizarre, but it’s pretty fun. It’s worth a listen if you don’t listen to anything else on the album.

There are a few tracks, such as the two listed, that really won me over, but the rest left me hitting next and hoping for a decent finale. The problem with Space is this album does the same thing over and over again. It slowly builds you up, gets you about a quarter of the way into a track, and unleashes something absolutely awesome on your senses. It then unfortunately drags on a bit and whimpers out to a shitty ending. After a few tracks everything starts to morph together.

Much of the album feels like it’s already been done before. Imagine the worst parts of Man Man meets of Montreal with a dash of Bowie. It’s lacking that ‘oomph’ that would win someone over, and instead is full of purposeful weirdness that doesn’t keep my attention long enough to have a vested interested in most of the tracks. Apparently a good chunk of Space was conceived and created in “an altered state of consciousness” and it’s pretty evident. The whole dingus-psych-rock-don’t-give-a-fuck shtick is overplayed on this album, and leaves the listener grasping for reasons to dig back out.