On Rockfour’s fourth studio album, Israel’s favorite rock band gets positively epic. The band has already made a name for itself with its masterful distillation of Beatles pop, late 60s psychedelia, and Byrdsian guitar jangle. However, with Memories of The Never Happened, Rockfour has imbued its retro style with a greater sonic weight, due largely to an increased experimentalism that not only lengthens track times but more importantly pulls tracks in different directions, making things both more interesting and unpredictable. For every simple pop song like the respectable four-minute “Goes Around,” there’s a shapeshifter like the seven-minute “Old Village House,” with its ethereal chimes, trippy effects, sneaky harmonica, and scathing Neil Young-esque guitar. For every “Because of Damaging Words,” which sounds more like Pink Floyd than any other song in recent memory, there is a “Dear Truth,” a track that combines Floyd’s moody instrumentalism with bouncy piano, jubilant melody, and jangly guitar. And every so often a lyric like “In June I’ll be tired, so I’ll take longer coffee breaks” cuts through the haze to lighten the mood. Memories is undoubtedly Rockfour’s best offering thus far as is proof positive that retro does not mean old, and that reaching back for inspiration does not preclude stretching forward toward new musical bliss.
--Frank Valish
