Elephant Stone - “La Fusée du Chagrin"

SXSW 2022 - OEB Score: 9; Popularity Index: 6

Pairs Well With…Foxygen, The Flaming Lips, Tame Impala

Elephant Stone may be six albums and a dozen years into their career as a band, but they’ve only grown tighter and more focussed as songwriters on 2020’s Hollow. Album number seven is around the corner and hopefully it continues the Canadian, sitar-assisted, rock band’s throwback/futurist balance sweetly established within their already deep catalog. While the kaleidoscopic psych-rock palette is Elephant Stone’s anchor, the band’s hooky, pop-centric songwriting is really what stands out on Hollow, memorably crafting songs influenced by past masters while still mindful to being their own thing. The band’s latest is “La Fusée du Chagrin”, the first from upcoming record Le Voyage De M. Lonely Dans La Lune, translating their deep psych-rock grooves to French while still maintaining their same core space-drive. (Kevin McStravick) 

2020 Review: The first five tracks released from Elephant Stone’s sixth album Hollow are fascinating, four of them under two minutes and dipping into all corners of classic pop psychedelia. “Keep the Light Alive” is a tight, hopeful hippie anthem, “Darker Time, Darker Space” lives on stoner guitar riffs while “The Court and Jury” highlights Rishi Dihr’s signature sitar drones. It’s not really new territory for Elephant Stone having been committing to this revivalist sound for the past few records, but the efficiency of their songwriting is notable and ultimately memorable for fans of the past and the future.