Amazing Baby, Rewild

Maybe it’s because their songs owe a great debt to the Stone Roses and Frank Zappa, or perhaps it’s because all five of them have long, messy hair, but Amazing Baby, the Brooklyn-based heirs apparent to MGMT, have been pigeonholed as “drugged-out nudist hippies”—even before the release of their debut album.

Rewild is, however, a major acid trip down psych-pop lane, flitting between synthesizers and traditional instruments, a playfully (and deliberately) regressive bathtub brew of escapist melodies. On tracks like “Bayonets” and “Kankra,” one gets the sense that these babies are moving one step forward, and two steps back—in the best way possible.