Castle Face

White Fence plays nicely scruffy 21st-century psychedelia. Tim Presley’s singing sometimes sounds like it’s coming through a transistor radio or a walkie-talkie and is never easy to make out, but it is somehow more beguiling when you only hear half of it. Small trebly or woozy sitar-effect strings temper overdriven and aggressively fuzzed-out guitars – a sonic standoff with the occasional twangy country lick. The spirit of Syd Barrett hovers over these songs – playful, tuneful and warped. The vocals are sneakily doubled in places, with distant, quiet singing creating ghostly twins of the main track. Some tracks, like “New Edinburgh,” meander off into muddy eddies. A pop sense permeates many of these songs, tugging and pulling the tunes, which are enhanced by extreme effects and loony-bin poetry.