For years, Milk for the Angry have made vaguely hazy psychedelia strained through a garage-punk filter. But the jagged guitars have slowly been stripped back over the years, leading to their most recent record, the buoyant Powder Trails on Fire. This one’s a slight pivot from the swirly-whirly sounds of previous years – but that’s not a bad thing. There’s still plenty of hallmarks of the genre, like high harmonies and studio trickery, but Powder Trails leans harder into the “rock” part of “psychedelic rock.”
It’s a little more consistently melodic and upbeat than previous works, indulging in more big chords and heavy riffs – the first time I fired up single “Yeah, Yeah Okay” it was an immediate bob-my-head-along-at-my-home-office-desk situation, and the chorus of “Super-Fi” is begging to be sung back at them from an audience. With this turn toward tunefulness, the whole album makes a great opener to summer.
