Allah-Las - Tell Me (What's On Your Mind)

There will always be an album or two or three or four that slips through the cracks when you put together your best of-lists each December. The best record of 2012 that I've missed until now is most likely L.A. quartet Allah-Las' eponymous debut album, an extraordinary collection of 12 songs that sound like they belong in 1966 or '67. To quote British rock magazine Uncut: "Their debut could pass as a lost volume of Nuggets, sounding as they did like innocent US teens seduced by the British Invasion." "Tell Me (What's On Your Mind)" is the perfect example, and for good measure, it has to be said that singer Miles Michaud sounds quite a bit like Green On Red's Dan Stuart. The entire record is a fantastic blend of music we've all heard before, sounding not of today at all, but as Uncut suggests, lost gems from way back when. And they do have an excellent band name, don't you think?

Watch and listen