Damien Youth

BROKEN FACE MAGAZINE
WALTER GHOUL'S LAVENDER BRIGADE
Walter Ghoul's Lavender Brigade …Is Coming
Merry X-Mas Elizabeth Kimbal
(Zygote)

This was a great recommendation from our friend Amy Nyman of The Broken Face. Walter Ghoul's Lavender Brigade is a seamlessly authentic mythical late '60s British psychedelic group dreamed up by current-day American musicians Damien Youth and Zane Armstrong. This review covers the band's first album Walter Ghoul's Lavender Brigade …Is Coming and the follow up Merry X-Mas Elizabeth Kimbal since I have them together as a two-CD set. Both are also available separately on vinyl. Walter Ghoul's Lavender Brigade exists in a time/space with The Beatles, Syd Barrett, The Kinks, and Small Faces as imagined contemporaries, and Orange Alabaster Mushroom and The Virgineers as modern peers. Even a few synth lines used in the place of horns don't really make the listener register than this is not vintage '60s music.

Frumpy And The Strange Machine starts WGLB …Is Coming with a murky Syd feeling - ominous and tentative until things break out at the chorus Madness and The Brian Jonestown Massacre come to mind listening to the jaunty yet foreboding House Of Small. Glass Room and Julia sound eerily like John Lennon, not in imitation but in tribute within original melodic and lyrical ideas. The relaxed strumming and cheerful harmonies on When She Came Around are in the Elephant 6 tradition. Old Man Arthur is sad and haunting, and definitely hits a melancholy Pink Floyd/Pretty Things vein. Another character song with a similar mood is Dr. Centenial. The sped up vocals and weird wah wah sounds on "Hey Mary Jane" effectively highlight the sweet/sinister vibe of the song. Sitar Piece has something in common with the pastoral meditations of Discolor. The music hall strut Stop could be a good Monkees single. Icicle Rainbow is WGLB's Penny Lane or Waterloo Sunset. The disc ends with WGLB Is Coming, a fitting theme song that sounds a bit like Mrs. Brown You Have A Lovely Daughter by Herman's Hermits filtered through Guided by Voices.

Merry X-Mas Elizabeth Kimbal expands on the WGLB style but there is still nothing here that would have sounded out of place in 1969. Butterfly and An Ordinary Day have a fuzz-heavy Brit-pop sound somewhere between Kula Shakur and Paul Weller. Mrs. Walker carries a moving anti-war message along the lines of The Zombies' Butcher's Tale and The Kinks' Some Mother's Son. Mr. Spaceman is a direct follow up to the Byrds' song of the same name; this is the kind of idea that could have gone badly wrong in the execution, but WGLB pulls it off easily. The irresistible title track is almost like Paul McCartney (Liverpool accent and all) fronting the Something Else-era Kinks. The bright melody of Hourglass fades beautifully into space as the title is sung. A cover of Mad John by the Small Faces is followed by the WGLB original character song Alistair, which proves to be every bit a match for the Faces classic.

Aside from the fact that Damien Youth and his partner Melody Fair are renovating an old Pennsylvania hotel as a studio/performance/living space (a very cool idea!), he is involved in countless musical projects including Surprise Symphony, Magic Island, Kyte, Featherbox, and The Cult Of Adam Strange. He has also recorded with Peter Daltrey of Kaleidoscope. Go to www.damienyouth.com or contact The Kaleidoscope, 1303 Midway, Windber, PA 15963 USA for more information.