Death Valley Girls Under The Spell Of Joy Vinyl LP Royal Blue with Red Pie Slices & Neon Pink Splatter Colour 2020

Royal Blue with Red Pie Slices & Neon Pink Splatter Colour Vinyl

Tracklist:

1. Hypnagogia
2. Hold My Hand
3. Under the Spell of Joy
4. Bliss Out
5. Hey Dena
6. The Universe
7. It All Washes Away
8. Little Things
9. 10 Day Miracle Challenge
10. I d Rather Be Dreaming
11. Dream Cleaver

The band's choral objectives for Under the Spell of Joy are established right off the bat, with Bonnie Bloomgarden's melodic invocations bolstered by a choir, giving the album a rich and vibrant wall-of-sound aesthetic. The song ominously builds on its hypnotic foundation until it opens up into a raucous revelry at the four-minute mark. The portentous simmer of the opening track yields to the ecstatic rocker Hold My Hand, where verses reminiscent of Velvet Underground's I'm Waiting For The Man explode into big triumphant choruses. From there the band launches into the title track, which marries the griminess of The Stooges with an innocence provided by a children's choir chanting the album's primary mantra 'under the spell of joy / under the spell of love.' Death Valley Girls have always vacillated between lightness and darkness, and on Bliss Out they demonstrate their current exuberant focus with a patina-hued pop song driven by an irrepressibly buoyant organ line laid down by keyboardist The Kid (Laura Kelsey). A similar cosmic euphoria is obtained on The Universe, where alternating chords on the organ help elevate soaring saxophone and keyboard lines out beyond the stratosphere. If you're looking for transcendental rock music, look no further.