Papercuts - 'Can't Go Back' (Gnomonsong) Released 26/03/07

'Can't Go Back', the title of Papercuts' debut announces. But the band - or artist, for Papercuts is essentially the solo vehicle of Jason Quever - immediately ignore their own advice by rewinding some 40 years to haziest, laziest days the Sixties had to offer. As such, it's temptingly easy to dismiss the platter as yet another pointless backwards-gazing exercise milking the most frequently visited era rock/pop has to offer. But this is no generic bland-out retro trip in the throes of an originality deficit.

Being signed to Devendra Banhart and Andy Cabic's label, it's no great surprise to discover just how much Papercuts resemble the dreamy vibes of Cabic's celebrated soft-focus Americana outfit Vetiver, especially so in Quever's fragile high-register vocals that frequently sound like the singer's on the verge of keeling over, so much so it's occasionally hard to decipher the quirky qualities of the San Francisco-based songwriter's distinctive storytelling. Less thrillingly, the album at first also seems to share the sluggishness that sometimes torpedoes Vetiver's output, resulting in an excessively laidback mush that lacks the bite of the band's namesake lacerations.

Listen closer, though, and an undeniably titanic talent for tunecraft and ear-catching analogue arrangements that pile on tons of elements without ever sounding cluttered soon emerge from the dozing torpor. At its best, 'Can't Go Back' resembles mid-60's Dylan with a more adventurous grasp on melody, or the first Velvet Underground album bathing in California sunshine. There are other influences at work as well, but the album's disparate templates form a coherent, united whole, thanks not least to Quever's gift for crafting captivating sonic cathedrals from homespun ingredients.

'Sandy' is a power-pop jewel drifting through a thick psychedelic fog, whilst the stunning 'Summer Long' shimmers like a low-budget take on Neil Young's widescreen orchestral epic 'Expecting to Fly'. 'Unavailable' strums and jangles like a particularly hip coffeehouse folkie tuning into the Byrds, whereas the stumbling piano intro of 'Outside Looking In' could be transported direct from Dylan and the Band's Basement Tapes sessions and 'Take The 227th Exit' struts like early Lou Reed in an unusually jovial mood. The undisputed highlight, however, is 'Found Bird', a blast of pure psych-drone manna, a swirling ride through a disorientating landscape of unhurriedly evolving melody.

Despite what the title claims, this is an album you're guaranteed to return to over and over again.