Review | ‘South of Reality’

The follow-up to 2016’s Monolith of Phobos finds Primus’s slap bass hero Les Claypool and indie-rocker extraordinaire Sean Ono Lennon (The Ghost of a Saber Tooth Tiger) in fine, playful form, continuing their neo-psych and prog-rock odyssey in the tradition of early Pink Floyd, King Crimson, and the Beatles. The band, CLD, has even covered Sean’s dad’s Beatles psych classic “Tomorrow Never Knows” in concert recently, with Rush’s Geddy Lee joining in! Among the best tracks on the album are “Blood and Rockets: Movement I, Saga of Jack Parsons / Movement II: Too[CQ] the Moon,” an ode to the controversial rocket engineer/Jet Propulsion Laboratory cofounder and Aleister Crowley acolyte Jack Parsons; and “Toady Man’s Hour,” which just might be about a certain impeachable louche douche.