Baron – Torpor (Svart Records)

Genre: Psychedelic Rock

Listening to Torpor is like floating above an ancient landscape of green, rolling hills and misty Oak forests, kissed by the sun’s rays as you gently drift across the sky. Its songs pull your mind out of the tumult of the present… they’re about as far away from the ringtone hooks of gleaming, modern pop as you can get. Not many people make music like this anymore. And not many people secretly record it in Purton Green – one of the UK’s last surviving medieval halls – either.

On their second album, Baron have tapped into both Britain’s deep well of psych-rock history and their country’s mythology to create a fine opus that (in pars) brings to mind acts like Traffic and Talk Talk.

Yet Torpor is no past-plundering pastiche, it’s a record that follows its own path and is blessed with fine songwriting. The gentle, lulling groove of Mark Maker is sublime, while Dark Down allows Alex Crispin’s beautiful voice to take centre stage and Stry takes a Floyd-like journey into the cosmos – a voyage which begs to be repeated time and time again.

Quite simply, the more you dig into this, the more Torpor reveals itself as a glorious body of work, and one which should see Baron rise to great heights. Stunning.

RUSHONROCK RATED: 8.5/10 Rock Royalty