The Honey Pot - Bewildered Jane (2019)

They’re back! Our favourite psychedelic band led by Icarus Peel and Crystal Jacqueline finally follow-up 2016’s ‘Inside the Whale’ with another trip inside the weird but wonderful musical minds of Peel and his like-minded conspirators, a place that we don’t get entrance to as much as we’d like. So, three years isn’t considered so long between albums these days,but when a band is this good it feels like forever.

‘Inside the Whale’ featured some of the darkest music we’d heard from the Honey Pot at that point in time (although songs like ‘Lisa Dreams’ also from that period displayed that the band hadn’t entirely abandoned their pop-pysch leanings. In some ways. ‘Bewildered Jane’ is an extension and development of the sounds that the Honey Pot discovered on that album. There’s less of the very English strain of psychedelia on display and more of the American variety. Obvious reference points, given the wonderful Crystal Jacqueline’s vocals on some tracks and Peel’s on others, are Neighb’rhood Childr’n’, Jefferson Airplane even. ‘Inside the Whale’ is no longer the darkest Honey Pot album.

The band for this collection of songs comprises Peel on vocals and displaying his usual guitar histrionics, still drenched in that acid reign (sic), Crystal Jacqueline once again shines on vocals and adds her keyboard skills, John Wyatt also adds his vocals along with slide guitar and keyboards, Andy Budge’s bass is outstanding and Wayne Fraquet’s drumming is first class. Lizzy Wayne plays the flute on one song, ‘Light Splinters’.

While Peel and Crystal Jacqueline attract the most attention when discussing the Honey Pot and this is partly due to the fact that both have albums released under their own, separate names, and that Peel is the main songwriter for the Honey Pot (although on four of the ten songs on ‘Bewildered Jane’ the band share writing credits), this latest collection of songs sounds more like a band effort than any other Honey Pot set. While the playing has always been faultless throughout the four previous albums bearing the bands’ name, the atmosphere created and the playing on ‘Bewildered Jane’ reaches new heights. Icarus Peel is one of our most underrated musicians and one of that small, elite bunch of musicians that can look back on the glorious days of psychedelia, take inspiration from that music and truly take it to pastures new. Peel hasn’t just added a new twist to the music from the golden era, which is surely where he takes most inspiration, but he’s even moved his music on from the first Honey Pot albums.

For those of a certain age who listen to radio stations which specialise in 60’s psych and shake their heads and wonder what the hell has happened to music, take a listen to the Honey Pot and rejoice in the fact that the Honey Pot and its separate members are not only keeping the spirit and sound of that era alive but, by adding their own identity subtly, are adding a new, fresh slant to the music.

It’s pointless picking out separate tracks from ‘Bewildered Jane’. Each song has it’s own special charm, but these songs belong together, it’s not a concept album but one that demands to be played through in one sitting, exactly in the running order that it’s issued in (so buy the vinyl and if the urge to skip a track out of habit arises, you won’t be bothered to get up and move the arm across, so will benefit from hearing each side of the album in full). The whole thing flows from one song to the next so effortlessly. It’s a dream of an album, an experience in more ways than one.

‘Bewildered Jane’ is an album made and produced by a relatively little-known five-piece band from Devon that is up there with the best psychedelic albums from any era. The musicianship is simply stunning, and in Crystal Jacqueline the band have one of the most powerful, expressive singers the UK has ever produced. There are so many breathtaking moments scattered throughout this album, ‘The Partisan Returns’ is a good place to start if the Honey Pot are new to you as it displays all that is special about this band. But really this is an album that deserves your undivided attention from start to finish. It contains their darkest music yet, but there is so much to discover it stands repeated playing. Dig deep! Here’s so much to enjoy here.