Lavender Flu - Tracing The Sand By The Pool LP

Always a welcome moment to have a band as eclectic as Lavender Flu return time and time again. With their seeming on/off switch between albums from rock band to free improv/experimental group (of which I realise now we missed their last record in this form), “Tracing The Sand By The Pool” sees the group at their most eclectic (in song mode that is) and possibly the easiest entry point to their catalogue.

Much of the album sits within the kind of spaced out psych rock territory of their band LPs, all slap-back delay, chiming guitars, with soaring overdriven leads (a true contemporary to Mystic 100s in this realm). But there’s also an eclecticism here that (as usual with the group) draws from their deep well of collaborators, here joined by Miranda of The Spatulas, Shelby Jacobson, and Kate Williams (who also played on Lily Mullen’s LP). A dip into hardcore tinged punk here, a cover of a rare garage rock deep cut there, and ending on what’s gotta be the sweetest and best country-tinged version of Buckingham Nicks/Fleetwood Mac’s ‘That’s Alright’ that I’ve ever heard!

-Mitch

Lavender Flu - Tracing The Sand By The Pool (In The Red, 2025), New LP, $44.95

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