The Tyde - Once (2000)

Like Beachwood Sparks (with whom they share three band members: Chris Gunst, Dave Scher and Brent Rademaker), the Tyde have struck a mother lode of gold sounds with an excellent debut, mining California's rustic cosmic Americana, psych-pop, and canyon rock for something that sounds wholly refreshing and of its own time. N.M.E. wrote that the Tyde capture the spirit and "wild mercury jangle" of Felt, while Melody Maker referred to the band as "frazzled Dylan obsessives," sounding like Bob "before the motorbike accident, caught in a druggy haze as the summer hits of the '60s wash against him." In addition to these reverent points of reference, there are hints that vocalist/guitarist Darren Rademaker (Brent's older brother -- both were in the '90s California rock band Further) likely has LPs by the Band, the Rolling Stones, Lou Reed, Lloyd Cole, Pavement, and maybe even Brinsley Schwarz' Silver Pistol stacked up near a vintage turntable in his living room. Darren's gift for penning smart/sardonic lyrics is evident throughout. The opening track, "All My Bastard Children," drips with poisonous venom while recalling infidelities by an ex-girlfriend ("You couldn't resist, touching one of them, so young and thin!"), while the loping, Byrds-ian "Strangers Again" sounds like an attempt to heal that same wounded heart. Along with Darren's dusky vocals, these sublime, mostly bucolic reveries are highlighted by swirling organs, lap steel, organ, Rhodes piano, and Benjamin Knight's guitar solos -- especially on "Your Tattoos." The Tyde's magnum opus, however, is the nearly ten-minute closer, "Silver's Okay Michelle" -- inspired, in part, by Michelle Kwan, the figure-skating teen who failed to bring home Olympic gold in the 1990s. Cascading, shimmering waves of guitars bring the song to its apex before slow-fading into blissful oblivion. Once is worthy of repeated drops of your needle.