Elephant Stone - Hollow (2020)

In the times long before Oasis and certainly before indie music made much of an impression on the public consciousness and wallet, Alan McGee’s Creation Records carved something of a niche for itself, by championing fey psychedelic guitar-pop revivalists. Rishi Dhir’s Canadian space cadets, Elephant Stone clearly have quite a fondness for those times, by immersing themselves in that sound with their latest album, Hollow. However, not content in tipping their collective hat to McGee’s acid eaters from the 1980s, Elephant Stone have flown even further into the psychedelic firmament, by making it a concept album.

Hollow tells the post-apocalyptic tale of a group of wealthy escapees’ attempt to colonise the mysterious New Earth from their spaceship Harmonia, after mankind’s catastrophic laying waste to our home planet. Needless to say, these adventurers are soon doomed to repeat humanity’s short-sighted mistakes, guided by a tendency towards greed, stupidity and theocracy. However, with Elephant Stone’s gentle trippy guitars, sitar, tabla and children’s choir, Hollow’s sound is not one that suggests destruction and inter-galactic disaster. Far from it.

The tunes of Hollow are altogether more suggestive of sunny afternoons sipping special tea and smoking exotic cigarettes. In fact, “I See You” is airy and mellow, while “The Clampdown” is tuneful and laidback and not at all reflective of lyrics that muse about religious maniacs abducting children in the night. “House on Fire” even picks up on the melodic groove of the Stone Roses’ debut album. However, our space refugees finally opt for a return to planet Earth with the Beatles-ish “A Way Home” and a hope for some kind of final redemption. So, maybe like Lewis Carroll’s famous Alice and her trips to Wonderland and through the Looking Glass, Hollow just turned out to be a trippy dream after all.