The Dukes of Stratosphear – Chips From the Chocolate Fireball

If spotting obscure references to even more obscure 60′s psychedelia is your thing (and there are, indeed, worse things you could be doing with your spare time) then The Dukes Of Stratosphear is the band for you.

A side-project of new wave act, XTC, The Dukes Of Stratosphear released an EP 25 O’Clock in 1985 and the album Psionic Psunspot in 1987. Chips From the Chocolate Fireball is the aforementioned records collected onto one disc, and what a belter it is.

Swimming in a sea of Tomorrow, Kaleidoscope, Pink Floyd, Grapefruit and numerous other British and US psychedelic bands, The Dukes Of Stratosphear dip into this proud heritage, gifting us an album that sounds like it’s the real deal and could easily pass for a lost work from that much cherished era.

Which is exactly how the original 25 O’Clock EP was marketed in 1985, even enjoying an April 1st release date to hint at the parody until XTC were ready to reveal their hand.

The references on Chips From the Chocolate Fireball are too many to mention but the Dukes cover just about every diverse aspect of psychedelic pop and acid rock, with the US garage psych of ’25 O’Clock’ leading into the Barrett/ Floydian ‘Bike Ride to the Moon’ – the first two tracks nailing their eclectically eccentric colours to the mast.

As a homage to the sounds of those acid-soaked times it nears perfection, scooping up the jangly, the grinding and the fuzziest of guitar riffs into one paisley blend of kaleidoscopic joy. And then there’s the obligatory mellotrons, sitars, bongos and a host of other weird and wonderful instrumentation to augment the authenticity.

Highlight of Chips From the Chocolate Fireball has to be the ‘The Mole From the Ministry‘, six minutes of Magical Mystery Tourism that celebrates The Beatles’ ventures into the lands of Walrus inhabited surrealism. ‘Have You Seen Jackie?’ and ‘Collideascope’ fight it out for second place on the honours role and in keeping with the traditions of Brit psychedelia there’s a jaunty music-hall style sing-along in the shape of ‘You’re a Good Man Albert Brown‘, echoing similar sojourns twenty years previous by the likes of Cream (‘Mothers Lament’) and The Kinks (‘All of my Friends Were There’).

Chips From the Chocolate Fireball is an essential album for lovers of all things psychedelic. A tantalising take on the genre as a whole, condensed into one perfectly formed and manageable package.

Both 25 O’Clock and Psonic Psunspot have recently been reissued, remastered and revamped with extra goodies, whereas Chips From the Chocolate Fireball remains available from Amazon.co.uk

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album reviews, psych-pop, psychedelic rock