POND - Terrestrials

The title for best psych-pop group originating from Perth, Western Australia, is hotly contested: Tame Impala, the chart-friendly breakout success, and the steadily-prolific POND. Not that either would really care, given that they’ve essentially comprised the same interchangeable pool of members over the years – a complex timeshare arrangement that would likely need a Venn diagram to explain.


Now on their 11th record - following the 2024 double-album, ‘Stung!’ - POND are devised as a group in which anything goes, something that has always been both their underlying strength and their weakness. That freedom of expression has led to many beautifully unhinged epics laced in psychedelia – from bubbling electronica to full-blown wig-outs. But, while they’re also very capable of producing direct, upfront pop bangers, they’ve often seemed intent on self-sabotage by giving songs titles such as ‘Heroic Shart’.


Though inherently eccentric and sprawling by design, for once, POND have imposed some restrictions on their sound: ‘No fuzz pedal. No ballads. No Pink Floyd shit.’ On ‘Terrestrials’ they boil everything down to its very essence. Opener ‘Skyworks’ sets the tone with a boxy beat, wailing synths and crunchy guitars, while ‘Casuarina’ is built around a gnarly, snagging riff that Queens of the Stone Age would envy. The excellent ‘Two Hands’ and title track ‘Terrestrials’, meanwhile, show the band at their most vital and upfront, and, by contrast, ‘Through The Heather’ is a gloriously chilled slice of synth-wave. And though there’s not a ballad in earshot, at times, it sounds a lot like Pink Floyd with a fuzz pedal. Nevertheless, POND will always exist in their own weird and wonky world, but it’s a place that everyone should visit every once in a while.