Starting off sounding like ‘Don’t Fear The Reaper’ for a few brief, strange seconds, ‘Radio’, Psychid’s third single for db, and the precursor to their debut album later this spring, is another one of those glorious buoyant songs that sounds like it would float off into the wide blue yonder if were untethered from its pop moorings. It’s an airy, unfettered sliver of understated grandiosity that seems to owe as much to The Police as it does Tim Buckley or (whisper it) Radiohead. Really, it’s so pristine and rich it could have been carved from marble. ‘Strings Attached’ sounds like Psychid trying to be Robert Wyatt, but despite its hymnal feel, it’s pretty innocuous. Instead it’s ‘Room 512’, hidden at the end of the single, that’s the real gem here: Psychid exploring their inner Kraftwerk, mischievously stealing Clinic’s 1970s New York New Wave-stytle synth pulse and spooky falsetto, quietly going mad like early OMD being fed ever-greater amounts of LSD in a haunted jazz lounge. They also become the second band, after Electric Six, to mention Taco Bell in song this year. Spooky and rather splendid.

Dale Kattack