Love Tractor

The second new album in a year from the retooled Love Tractor arrives next week. Green Winter is a fine follow-up to last year’s Black Hole, a psychedelic exodus into the band’s dense and layered sound, and is light years away from the kitchy revelry of the early ’80s “golden age” of Athens.

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This journey floats captain Mike Richmond and his crew into a fertile yet foggy terrain. Richmond’s often-eerie voice guides the guitar and keyboard-fueled expedition into fantasyland (“Saturn Rings”) and keeps it firmly tethered to the ground with amusing land-locked distractions. “Turquoise and Yellow” ably recalls the familiar dirt road prophecies of ‘83’s Around the Bend.

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And, yes, there’s even a colossal nine-minute epic. “Below the Surface” spirals into a dark and foreboding cavern of sound, swiftly rescued from the freezing Green terrain by the blues workout of “Green Field Rock.” The brief title track gently closes this hazy shade of winter with an ominous emerald flicker that resonates long after the CD is over.