"Dodging Dues": Garcia Peoples' new release

Given their name, it’s fair to say that New Jersey six-piece Garcia Peoples are familiar with the music of The Grateful Dead. But while they’re more than capable of stretching out and letting go, ‘Dark Star’-style, and thrive as a live, improvisational unit, they’ve also nailed the art of writing compact, well-turned songs that nevertheless contain a fluid, boundless potential. This comes through loud and clear on Dodging Dues, their first album for No Quarter - home of fellow traveller Chris Forsyth - and their most succinct collection of tunes yet.

There’s a hazy, organic magic to Garcia Peoples’ music, as though the songs have gradually seeped into being. They’ve taken the American jam band format, combined it with English folk-rock, and created a strangely intricate yet supremely melodic signature sound: tactile riffs, mellow grooves, charmingly jerky harmony vocals and lots of sun-dappled liquid guitaring, restlessly surging and rippling throughout.

Dodging Dues isn’t as proggy as last year’s wonderful Nightcap At Wits'End, but its arrangements retain a pleasingly loose feel. They also have plenty to say about the state of both the world and their heads, with "False Company"'s impassioned line "Fare thee well, oh troubled mind” setting the tone. The three-track song suite comprising ‘Cold Dice’, ‘Tough Freaks’ and ‘Stray Cats’ is particularly dazzling, moving from sweet langour to urban strut, like The Eagles poked with sticks or Steely Dan slumming it as a psychedelic bar band.

Elsewhere, ‘Here We Are’ is a cosmic country epic, its ghostly pedal steel the perfect soundtrack for an acid- fried cowboy movie - the guitars trade licks amiably before coming together in a dramatic climax that could go on forever. And ‘Fill Your Cup’ shows they can get spiky too when needed, ending this enchanting and entrancing album with a snarl.