Glyders: Forever

There’s a timelessness to Glyders’ second full-length release, Forever, placing you in a moment where everything else is irrelevant.

What started out as a creative coalition between guitarist / vocalist, Joshua Condon, and bassist, Eliza Weber, Glyders released several EPs before their breezy, roadhouse country debut, Maria’s Hunt, in 2023. And following the arrival of Joe Seger on drums, it’s this unit that takes the band to wonderful new heights on Forever.

Produced by Condon and mixed by Bitchin Bajas’ Cooper Crain, Forever shakes, rattles and rolls. Psych-infused lounge country that sparks the senses, Glyders are a kaleidoscopic force of the past and present, and alongside Drag City label mates, Mike Donovan and Prison as well as New York’s Weak Signal, they take rock ’n’ roll to the places it needs to go.

There’s a lot dissect on Forever. Not just from song-to-song but within each song, as Glyders constantly pivot where it feels like you’re travelling through multiple reality tunnels. I mean, you very well could be! If Marc Bolan got shoved backed a few years into the Summer of Love, it may have sounded something like this. A communal celebration showered in cosmic fairy dust.

And the first sprinkle of it arrives with Super Glyde. The first in a series of songs that comes as advertised, through the haze of guitar feedback, mute notes and brisk twangs, it’s where glam intersects with southern boogie. Unlike Moon Eyes, which alongside the excellent closing cut, Thousand Miles, is all sunroof sway and unabated dreaminess. It’s Glyders pulling their audience into the vast lands where the country breeze blows through the hair.

Both songs are Forever’s ‘respite’ tracks. Simplicity to match the past’s more innocent times, but the three-piece don’t stay there for too long. Stone Shadow finds them blunting the edges of hard-rock with a tale where acceptance of stagnation can actually be liberating, (“Ain’t got no money /I just want to have a ball / How to do when you’re on the losing end of the all of it all”). Meanwhile, the plinking West African rhythms on New Realm tickle the corners of the mind, and as Glyders navigate yet another tricky corner, the ensuing straight road ahead hits the frequencies of Blue Oyster Cult.

The road-trip continues with Hard Ride, as Glyders introduce krautrock to AM radio stations. A droning psychedelic wig-out with keys, plinks and squalls that solo into orbit, inflected with Seger’s thumping rhythms and even some tambourine (the latter not used nearly enough these days), it’s the kind of song that opens new portals in the mind.

And one of the most adventurous is Steppin’ / Tell Me About the Rabbit. Kicking up the dust with galloping glam country with some added Barrett-inspired weirdness, Glyders dispense something that fills the room with colours, shapes and new vitality, embodying the spirit of Forever. The kind of record to let wash over you and bathe in its glory. It’s inventiveness, the stuff of chemical-inspired dreams, and for all those grizzled blokes set in their ways and listening habits, it’s time to bin off the annual subscription to Record Collector for some new shit. Starting with this.

Forever is out now via Drag City. Purchase from Bandcamp.