Album Review: Jellies by 77:78

I can't see this record coming out in any other time but the summer. And not any summer; an hallucinatory-level hot season in the city without air conditioning, with the blinds of every building permanently down and the streets' fountains trying to accommodate every kid (and grown-up) hoping to refresh themselves. The debut LP from The Bees' Aaron Fletcher and Tim Parkin's new project 77:78 navigates that unreal underworld our own mind creates after the body has been subjected to constant coups de soleil: the colours brighter, the sounds clearer, the emotions deeper.

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77:78's debut, Jellies, is a rather tentative foray into the kind of prismatic, reggae- and jazz-colored psych-rock that Aaron Fletcher and Tim Parkin mastered with their previous band, the Bees. The weightless “Poor It Out” offers a glimpse of what the duo is capable of when they adorn simple yet memorable melodies with psychedelic flourishes: A gentle guitar riff seamlessly gives way to cascading brass during the chorus, with a dreamy trumpet solo at the song's climax. But tracks like opener “If I'm Anything” and lead single “Love Said (“Let's Go)” are somehow both labored and half-baked, suffering from unimaginative and weary-sounding melodies that feel lackluster when juxtaposed with glittery synth motifs.

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When a band you like goes on hiatus, you fear the worst. When you hear they've a new project, you feel excitement and pangs of "why didn't you just keep the other band going!" Luckily 77:78, made up of Aaron Fletcher and Tim Parkin of The Bees fame, have enough similarities and differences to keep us entertained. 'Jellies' is 11 tracks of the kind of blissed out, hazy, indie-psych pop, that took The Bees from their Isle of Wight base to the Top 30, Glastonbury and beyond, but with enough retro charm to make you question if it was actually recorded in 2018.

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