Hail To The Clear Figurines is the sixth album by Philly psychonauts, The Asteroid #4.
Hot off the heels of their prior release, 2008's These Flowers Of Ours..., our heroes decamped to the mind-warp vortex that is their studio home during the winter of 2010 to continue their assault on the senses.
Perhaps due to the season, and its affect on the psyche, Hail To The Clear Figurines has a touch of melancholy, a wistfulness borne of the blown snow and bare trees enveloping their surroundings. A willing back to life of all that was slumbering. What we have is a document of the effort.
The bargain was sealed, the giant awoke.
From the opening invitation to "take the journey like we're lovers," on Wicked Wire, the apocalypse history of the title track, the shambolic Buffalo Springfield-alike of The Unknown and the Byrdsian Got Nowhere To Go -- with its line "I'm looking around this room/I feel as though I'm living in a cocoon" -- to the dreams-of-futures-passed invoked by A Sunny Day (One Afternoon) to the closing thrust and majesty of Ignition Slated For Eight, The Asteroid #4 have built a temple to take shelter and solace in.
We're all witness to the formidable maturation and glory days of a band willing to take, head-on, their own lofty expectations -- then exceed them.