Going Down in Style or Album Review: Sisters of Your Sunshine Vapor – Spectra Spirit

While psychedelic experiences are usually associated with warmth and the Summer of Love, some find a darker place. 2 years before Charles Manson made everyone’s trip go bad, the Velvet Underground released The Velvet Underground and Nico. If time is an illusion, V.U. might have run into Sisters of Your Sunshine Vapor while they were bumping around those dark spirit places. Their sophomore album, Spectra Spirit, is a gritty, dark, and beautiful volume of psychedelic rock that surpasses their eponymous debut.

Untitled opens the album with a droning guitar note that works like a mantra to keep the thinking mind at bay. With apparent contempt, Morrow growls, “Lord, can you hear me? We’re all going down in style”. The moment where the rest of the band joins him is an exhilarating release of fun and furious rock n’ roll. Two short beats later, his guitar answers back with a dissonant note, as if to say, “this trip won’t be a smooth one”. Sawoscinski’s second layer of percussion hammers away at the end of the song to brilliantly punctuate the remark.

The first half of Spectra Spirit is dark and sometimes brutally heavy. Even the acoustic guitar in Howlers on the Roam does little to soften the grit. “All of your disease, all of your desire”, Morrow promises as we follow him into some arid wasteland.

Center of a Velvet Room starts with a cool tribal beat that springs fluidly from the end of the track before it. Morrow’s guitar is a little reminiscent of Thurston Moore while Oppitz’s bass line would fit well in a Slayer song. Here, they’re both genius. At about 1:50, they come together to make one of the coolest harmonies I’ve heard ever.

The Hole in Your Brain is an appropriately named mind-fuck that eventually leads us to the gorgeous and sticky-sweet Did You Hear the Lion Roar, Mr. Wig. Halfway through, a 12-string starts to chime and the song takes on a new feel. This is my favorite spot on the album.

Live in My Mind offers further relief from the darkness with its bouncing rhythm, jangly guitar, and sing-along chorus. This song has single written all over it.

Green Eyes and Dream is the perfect closer for the record. The instrumental break is beautiful and feels transcendent, except you can’t shake the feeling that something is wrong. A dull thud that sounds like a body falling adds to the vague sense of menace. Eventually the song explodes into some sort of hellish carnival.

Dense sonic landscapes hang like fog and permeate the song structures. The band deftly executes parts that are as much about atmosphere as they are about notes. The lyrics are topical and surreal, favoring meditations on the Dark subject matter over a clear narrative. As a whole, it’s 9 songs and just over 40 minutes worth of well-written, well-performed and well-recorded music.

Listen to the album or pre-order here