This band borrow their name from a 1967 episode of Star Trek, in which Mr Spock’s Galileo shuttle crash-lands on a hostile planet.
The captain of this particular ship is Allan Crockford, bass player with The Prisoners, who were mainstays of the Medway garage scene that sprouted in the outer reaches of south-east England in the 1980s. If the 1960s are their Moonbase Alpha, here Crockford and his crewmates veer off into less-explored territory, encountering some of the best English eccentric psych-rock, like time travellers whose watches have stopped at 25 o’clock. The reflective, haunting title track False Memory Lane is underpinned with Mellotron akin to the Moody Blues’ Days Of Future Passed, and elsewhere the songs are tuneful and energetic, switching from dreamy Syd Barrett vocals and whimsical organ to the rapid fire of ‘phasers set to stun’ on Tide’s Rising. There’s a concept here, which is the misplaced wisdom of hindsight. Or, as Crockford puts it, “The way we build a narrative arc into our lives as if we weren’t just bumbling along making it up at the time.” It makes for an intriguing listen. Resistance is futile.
