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Close your eyes, and you're there. San Francisco, 1968 or so; warm sun, gentle breezes, hippies discarding their beloved sitars and tie-dyes in favour of rhinestones and pedal-steel guitars. Open your eyes and, well, you could still be there. Sure, we're in a basement in west London, but their shoulder-draping locks and denim cowboy-style shirts suggest that LA's Beachwood Sparks are genuine sweethearts of the rodeo.

There's none of the faux-rusticism of the alt-country set worn on workshirt-sleeves here. Ex-members of cult US noiseniks Furthur, the Sparks approach psych-country with the passion of aficionados, the result a spookily ersatz take on The Flying Burrito Brothers/Byrds style gulch-rock. Heavy on the slide guitar, the jangle, the perfect harmonies, there's a great deal of love poured into every note, that's for sure, the likes of 'Old Sea Miner' being pure West Coast sunshine - a perfect evocation of the California sound before the likes of The Eagles sanitised it and made it saleable.

Just as you're wondering how close Beachwood Sparks came to pleasant-but-pointless retroism, the band ditch the reverence for little explosions of feedback, their chugging cover of The Everly Brothers' 'Wake Up Little Susie' disintegrating into a full-on whiteout of motorik rhythms and noise. It's proof that, deep down, there's more to Beachwood Sparks than a simple genre exercise, and it's a side to their sound they should explore, y'know, furthur.

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