Including bleating goats in your music seems like a a superfluous gimmick, but Belgian psych rock outfit Hugs Of The Sky gets away with it—I’m guessing that these pettable animals graze in the Limburg countryside where the band resides, but either way it makes their bewitching track SaraH even more enchanting. It’s one of five great tunes on their Temple Of Soda EP, which follows up 2023’s Psychedelic Pop Corn. The most admirable thing is that brothers Boris and Sigi Willems and their drummer Seppe Camps just as easily pull off exuberant and freaky rock songs (Austerity Demon Days, Moonshake, Fool’s Order) as they display subdued and hypnotic musicality (SaraH, The Ballad Of The Balrog), but in all cases the original ideas and earworm hooks tumble over each other.

Temple Of Soda, produced by Boris Willems and mastered by Frederik Tack, is out now digitally via Wagonmaniac Music.

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