Bardo Pond: Isobel Sollenberger (vocals, flute); Michael Gibbons, John Gibbons (guitar); Clint Takeda (bass); Joe Culver (drums). Recorded at Cycle Sounds, Philadelphia, Pennsylvannia. LAPSED, Bardo Pond's fourth album, brings to the forefront a bluesy brand of psychedelic rock damage that was less overtly expressed on previous records. Perhaps it's the prominence of vocalist/flautist Isobel Sollenberger on most of these seven cuts. She's showcased to especially powerful effect with the marble-mouthed, corroded slide-guitar lollings of "Pick My Brain." The twin guitar riffing of John and Michael Gibbons is even more honed, polished to a keen, cutting edge on the opening "Tommy Gun Angel" and the beautifully sculpted "Green Man." Magnitude is Bardo Pond's specialty, and LAPSED offers a pair of extended displays wherein the band's yin-and-yang inclinations are afforded full reign. On the epic "Aldrin," Clint Takeda's tantric basslines and Joe Culver's steady, hypnotic drumming entice Sollenberger and the Gibbons brothers up the spiral stairway to psychedelic heaven. "Flux," an overwhelming, mid-album eruption of barely restrained axemanship, annihilates Sollenberger's valiantly fluttering flute with a blitzkrieg of supersaturated mushroom-cloud guitar.

1. Tommy Gun Angel
2. Pick My Brain
3. Flux
4. Anandamide
5. Green Man
6. Straw Dog
7. Aldrin