It is Pond’s fate forever to be discussed in relation to Tame Impala, and it is hardly surprising. This band from Perth, Western Australia, began life as a spin-off from those more venerated psychedelic voyagers, and the two groups continue to swap members as if on a space-rock job-share scheme: at the latest count, all but one current member of Tame Impala have previously been in Pond.
The difference is that where Tame Impala are essentially a vehicle for the musical dreams and vision of their band leader, Kevin Parker, Pond are a far looser and more democratic concern. This shifting collective chuck out albums whenever they feel like it, which is pretty much all the time: from 2009’s Psychedelic Mango to this year’s The Weather, they have released seven in nine years.
Tama Impala have now graduated to the world’s arenas but it is still possible to see Pond spiel out their louche, vital psych-rock in sweaty shoebox venues such as this. Five hirsute men line up across its gaudily Phoenix Nights-style stage and fire straight into 30000 Megatons, a song about nuclear oblivion that opens adrift in a sky with diamonds before left-turning into a seismic wig-out.
Singer Nick Allbrook has tonight come as a pouting, glam-pop elf prone to giggles and entertaining between-song non sequiturs. He looks like a young Beck fronting Super Furry Animals. Pond co-founder Jay Watson’s synths have come to the fore on the new album, and melodic recent single Sweep Me off My Feet could be a mutant strain of New Romanticism, like a lysergic Blancmange.
Pond are less expansive and experimental than Tame Impala, but what they lack in profundity they make up for in pop smarts. New song Fire in the Water is clipped and notably radio-friendly. “You can buy it from the table at the back,” ventures Allbrook. “No, we are giving them [vinyl] away free with the gig ticket,” corrects Watson. “Oh, right!” says his singer. “Bonzer!”
Paint Me Silver recalls the Flaming Lips when they were still all about cosmic wonder rather than circus tricks, while the episodic Edge of the World Parts 1 and 2 suggests a stoned mash-up of Ummagumma-era Pink Floyd and ELO. Pond close a deeply entertaining evening with a final astral ramble called Man It Feels Like Space Again. As ever, it is a track that thoroughly merits its title.
• At Bethnal Green Working Men’s Club, London, until 30 August. Box office: 020-7739 7170. Then touring.
