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Album Premiere: The Spiral Electric by The Spiral Electric

The Spiral Electric - Photo Credit: Greg Gutzebahl
22 March 2019

The Spiral Electric – Photo Credit: Greg Gutbezahl

The long-awaited new album by San Francisco-based heavy psychedelic/acid rock band The Spiral Electric is a sprawling, self-titled double-LP, almost three times the length of their previous two releases. Unleashed in the studio with producer Steve Kille (Dead Meadow), the group’s new collection is a much darker and heavier affair than their earlier work.

The band is powered by a brutal rhythm section comprised of drummer Matias Drago and bassist Michael Summers, injecting the Spiral Electric’s sound with a potent groove that propels the songwriting of guitarists Clay Andrews and Nicolas Percey into realms previously unexplored. This is the tight line-up who recorded in the studio. Since then, Summers has amicably departed the band and new bassist Cedar Wingate has joined the fold.

The arrangements on The Spiral Electric are much more complex this time around, with an army of percussion, swirling synthesizer work, and layered vocal harmonies sweetening the driving riffs and caterwauling leads, and organ/piano keyboards figuring much more prominently in the sound. The quartet forge boldly into other flavors of music – ranging from jangly psychedelic ballads to buzzsaw riffing, with songs veering dangerously close to doom metal, manic surf/punk, and even spacey atonal interludes, but the band manage to bring it all back into a sound that is distinctly their own.

Mastered by Grammy-nominated mastering engineer Howie Weinberg (Nirvana, Smashing Pumpkins, The Mars Volta, Pixies), the 66-minute double album is a bold statement by one of the most notable bands to emerge from San Francisco’s modern psychedelic scene.

The Spiral Electric drops in week, on Friday March 29th, at the end of a string of tour dates during which the band will be joining Italy’s New Candys on part of their US tour, and culminates with an appearance at the 11th annual Desert Stars Festival in Joshua Tree, California.

Find The Spiral Electric on CD and digital download via Bandcamp, with double-vinyl to follow this summer.

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