Panda Bear & Sonic Boom - 'Reset'

8/10

Throughout the last decade, Panda Bear and Sonic Boom have been regularly collaborating on each other's material. While Panda Bear originally made his mark within Animal Collective, and Sonic Boom a member of Spaceman 3, the pair have usually seen their solo work as another opportunity to bounce ideas off one another, with Sonic Boom also mixing and co-producing Panda Bear's 2011’s LP 'Tomboy' and 2015’s 'Panda Bear Meets the Grim Reaper'. Now sharing top billing for the first time, their collaborative studio album 'Reset' sees them hark back to their earliest influences.

While both artists have a respective reputation for seeking out forward-thinking ideals and aesthetics within their sounds, 'Reset' has more of a regressive appeal as they look back to the 60s psych-rock era for inspiration. As a result, their latest endeavour has this brilliantly familiar yet sprawling direction that still manages to pack itself with plenty of fresh and enticing moments. Taking that classic and almost experimental guise and reinventing it for a modern ear, they have created a wonderfully original and spacey offering that captures both of their inventive majesty perfectly.

These two have always felt one step ahead of the crowd with everything they do, and 'Reset' is another bold step into unknown territory that they have managed siphon gold out of. It has a beautifully peaceful and serene aura running through it, something that we can all appreciate right now.

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