Reviewed by Ian Phillips.
By Lipstereo, Pop Preservation Society 2022.
Lipstereo is a Melbourne based band and Little Spaceships is the second single to be lifted from their up-coming EP Modern Mythology.
The track was produced by Mark Opitz (it seems that he’s the go-to producer at the moment) and recorded at his Thirty Mill studios in Melbourne.
The first single from the EP, Stop, is a post punk bit of garage rock and its video has already been aired for four consecutive weeks on ABC’s Rage, and the song even found its way onto US and Canadian College Radio playlists.
Little Spaceships takes us in a different direction as we embark on a nostalgic journey into some of the terrain explored by ‘60s Beatles and early ‘70s Mark Bolan and T Rex.
The vocal treatment is very much Bolan and the melodic bass line from the mid-song hiatus onward is reminiscent of Paul McCartney’s work.
Opitz even incorporates a mellotron in the mix; a keyboard instrument that The Beatles used in Strawberry Fields Forever.
An interesting fact is that McCartney would often lay down a conservative, bare bones, bass line while the band was recording the basic tracks.
He’d return to the studio later and rerecord his bass parts providing the more melodic and complex underpinning that is associated with the Fab Four.
While Little Spaceships has a ‘60s-70s feel it still has punkish overtones.
There’s a grunginess to the vocal, particularly in the latter parts of the song, that could be Nirvana or any other grunge band from that era.
Lipstereo are a good band and considering the quality of the first two singles it whets the appetite for the EP.
