Based in Memphis, TN, Aquarian Blood is the core duo of J.B. Horrell and Laurel Horrell, a husband and wife team; their fourth full-length Counting Backwards Again is available now on vinyl and digital, co-released by Black and Wyatt Records, Beluga Records, and Head Perfume Records. The roots of Aquarian Blood are as a full-fledged band dishing punk of a raw and twisted sort, but a broken appendage brought on a stylistic redirect into psychedelia that’s intimate and equally bent.
Before Aquarian Blood, J.B. Horrell was in Ex-Cult and Laurel Horrell was in the Nots, both bands that released music on Goner Records. Unsurprisingly, both outfits specialized in the punk scuzz that has long been the Goner label’s bread and butter. After releasing a pair of tapes on ZAP Cassettes, Aquarian Blood joined the Goner roster with the “Savage Mind” 7-inch in 2015, and along with cutting a couple more non-Goner 45s, spat out Last Nite in Paradise on the label in 2017.
‘twas a prime slab of deliciously fucked-up punk ranting, but then drummer Bill Curry up and broke his arm, after which, Aquarian Blood shifted from a six-piece band to a quartet for live shows and then into acoustic duo mode for the release of A Love That Leads to War in 2019. Far from standard issue psych folk, the album oozed a non-pro, home-recorded strangeness that was expanded upon with some helping hands on Bending the Golden Hour, which was issued by Goner in 2021.
Bending the Golden Hour and its predecessor offered moments of prettiness that offset the music’s fringe qualities, but Counting Backwards Again really pushes into the weird wild wilderness at times, in part through a broader spectrum of instrumentation, plus guests, so that the thrust occasionally connects like a full band again.
Guitars, bass, drums and percussion, keys, synths, harmonica, and flute. It all helps to cultivate a lost-hippie eeriness in opener “Forecast Paralyzed,” as Laurel sings lead. “Cold Jet Steel,” with J.B.’s vocal, scales back to just some impressive fingerpicking and backing voices for a morning after coming down sort of feel.
The band approach in “You Stayed Behind” is shambling and sparse like a home recording (but too vivid to be categorized as lo-fi). Laurel’s singing pushes the whole to the outside, very nicely. She does the same in the slightly stunted strum gallop of “Golden Roan” with its intermittent blips of synth. It ends with the sound of a thunderstorm.
While the folk angle persists, “The Sound” has a ’60s pop undercurrent, and then comes “No Sympathy,” a Peter Tosh tune that radiates more like Lee and Nancy taking an exit ramp into a darkly folky pasture. The flute and a hand drum come raging back for the untamed tribal-ish “Flying Home,” and then entering the home stretch “On to See” and “Wildcat” are just folk rollers somewhere between the New Weird Freakiness and Mike Fellows’ work as the Mighty Flashlight.
Between them, the title track is another Laurel-sung swayer that’s like learning how to stand up sideways. “To Stay” is a fingerpicking fiesta and simultaneously a messed-up Memphian delight, particular in the repeated low-end guitar lick. Closer “Ever and Ever” brings bowed strings into an atmosphere that both heavily percussive and woozy.
Counting Backwards Again is quite the druggy affair (whether or not J.B. and Laurel partake is immaterial), but the more it plays the more Aquarian Blood’s beautifully damaged logic coheres.
GRADED ON A CURVE:
A-
