Essex Green

The Essex Green is made up mainly from the remnants of those favourites of purveyors of soul patches and thick-rimmed glasses, Ladybug Transistor. Their album, The Long Goodbye, is a well-crafted piece of neo-folk rock with an obligatory Brain Wilson fetish. But the real story of this album isn’t its overall quality (of which it has plenty) but just a single song, "The Late Great Cassiopia.” Sounding like the Velvet Underground kidnapping the Mamas and the Papas and forcing them to sing at gunpoint, this song is one of the finest examples of ’60s retread being worth the effort. Tight, driving, and rammed full of Farfisa, "The Late Great Cassiopia” makes the Essex Green more than worth checking out.