My writing process became ritualistic; every morning starting with a small walk to the local bottle shop at 11am and writing whatever flowed, allowing myself to design in all styles without boundaries, and not trying to theme the album early on.” This newfound creative freedom has manifested in the shape of ‘SHYGA! The Sunlight Mound’, a riff heavy reveller that continues to harness the power of PPC’s love for a dirty groove, merged with woozy chemical induced highs.

Despite McEwan seeming pretty content with his routine, a lot of ‘SHYGA! The Sunlight Mound’ centres around the themes of adjusting to non-tour life and the perils of get smashed at home, without the giddy highs of a live show and the void left by not having the thrill of a new city to wake up to every day. Throw a dart anywhere at the tracklist and you’ll find McEwan muse about isolation or the perils of bewildered intoxication. The high octane stomp of ‘Tripolsaur’ opens up with McEwan professing “I’m getting used to waking up and feeling rough”, while the less abrasive but no less trippy ‘Glitterbug’ finds the band’s lynchpin in a reflective mood “I don’t know how to spend these days without going overboard”. ‘Mundungus’, a rapid rock ‘n’ roll fuzz monster, continues the theme of pushing the limits of partying “they said at my intervention/you should give drinking a rest”. Notions of isolation crop up here and there too; ‘Mango Terrarium’s colourful explosion of woozy sound has the band’s vocalist ponder the life of a hermit “grow old in my own vacuum forever” and then there’s ‘Mr. Prism’s stomping tie-dyed melange of weird noises and nasty breakdowns, as the PPC man seems to be at ease with the slower pace of life brought on by a pandemic “it’s wonderful how comfortable a lazy life can be”. Album closer ‘The Tale of Gurney Gridman’ finishes off ‘SHYGA! The Sunlight Mound’ on a contemplative note; merging rampant psyche-rock with something hazier and less abrasive as the track plays out, McEwan repeats some sage advice towards the LP’s final ebbs “every old man tells me the same/live
while you’re young/enjoy each day”.

This isn’t to say the Perth troop’s new album is a downer, far from it, the woozy fretwork and vivid kaleidoscope of colour on display couldn’t be more uplifting and vibrant, and most importantly fun. After all isn’t that why you’d listen to a Psychedelic Porn Crumpets album, for the outrageous riffs and the grubby yet delicious grooves found in the likes of ‘The Terrors’, ‘Pukebox’ and pretty much everywhere else on the album? Of course it is! That’s why the juxtaposition of the record’s narrative and its sonic playfulness works so well, albeit there is a tendency for songs to blur into one at times.

Not so much a document of an unprecedented time in humanity, more the result of it; ‘SHYGA! The Sunlight Mound’ is the outcome of someone channelling their creative urges when most of us have been sat on our arses watching Netflix and ordering pizza.

order SHYGA! The Sunlight Mound by Psychedelic Porn Crumpets HERE