A fab follow-up to their first slice of sunny folk-flavoured psych, but what would I know when the closest thing I get to tripping is driving an hour cross-country through western Sydney to punch in as a corporate slave? At least music like this make the journey more bearable (substituting MDMA for sugar substitute in the coffee not being an option when you take your caffeine straight up).

Where the album does go off the rails is its cover art. I love the weird and warped letter art that TDRM get up to for their posters but couldn’t work out whose album title was being crunched by Disraeli’s Gears on the purple and grey background. I’m thinking a snap of some smoky bong-populated Moroccan boudoir, or the results of Timothy Leary’s last colonoscopy might have done the trick equally well. So now that we have the important stuff out of the way, let’s turn to the music…

This is actually half an album of TDRM music with the balance credited to “Dandelion” (aka the band’s guitarist/vocalist Daniel Poulter) who apparently played most of the instruments. I wouldn’t name any of my offspring Dandelion more than I’d slap them with Moon Unit Zappa or Zowie Bowie as a burden to carry through life, but if Dan wants to wear that moniker as the leader of a trippy psych rock band, that’s, er, just dandy with me. Don’t expect me to call him out loud if we’re on the piss and it’s his shout in a bar full of steroid-chomping bikers.

“A Purple Journey…” is book-ended by slices of mood-setting aural ephemera (“Enter the Mod Machine” and “Cross Wired”), a brace of instrumentals to set the mood. What’s in-between runs the gamut from fuzzy menace ("Get Up And Go go") to freakbeat-pop ("Follow the Sound"). "Gypsy Dancer" is bonafide early Died Pretty on one of their more whimsical pop trips. "My Friend" is a sea of calm in the eye of a psychedelic storm, a companion piece to "The Wiser Road".

Dandelion's half of the album comes across as a little edgier and harder-edged but it's only by a matter of degrees. Put much of that down to "Get Up And Go-Go". Then there's a song like "Follow the Sound", which is deceptively simple in its construction, following a simple melody throughout. "I Can See Through Orange" entwines female and male vox to create a slightly maudlin tone.

Production is, for the most part, intimate and quietly transparent, allowing the disparate elements like percussion, acoustic guitars, vibes and sitar (among others) to shine through. It's well removed from almost anything else you'll find on your local record store shelves and certainly not the crap your average mainstream radio station would consider playing, more's the pity.

This is the second TDRM release in nine months and I'm hoping there's more petrol in the tank. Either they have nowhere else to go after this or the psychedelic world's their oyster. I'm leaning towards the latter. – The Barman

Track listing

1. Enter The Mod Machine<br />
2. For Those Teary Eyes<br />
3. Tell It Like It Is<br />
4. Gypsy Dancer<br />
5. My Friend<br />
6. The Wiser Road<br />
7. Follow The Sound<br />
8. I Can See Through Orange<br />
9. Get Up And Go-Go<br />
10. Hers And Mine<br />
11. For Those Smiling Eyes<br />
12. Cross Wired<br />