New Age Healers | “Blowing Smoke Through the Choir”

New Age Healers is a Seattle band with a 90’s90s Alternative Pacific Northwest influence, but not in a grunge kind of way. They may have been in MTV’s “Buzz Bin” back in the 90s, but New Age Healers’ “Blowing Smoke Through the Choir” is a lush sonic collection of songs all representing different influences, but infused in a clever way on a cohesive album. Produced by John Goodmanson (Bikini Kill, Sleater-Kinney, Blonde Redhead), the album is rich and deep in texture, with excellent songwriting and memorable choruses.

The album starts off with “The Fastest Show,” hitting a new Psychedelica drive when the bass line kicks in. Long, drawn out vocals on the chorus stretching into sunshine infinity, underlined with choppy riffs. “Moored” starts with an electronic beat unfolding into a lush delay of guitar. Chill washed out vocals, but clean enough to hear the lyrics, and is highly listenable sonically, with some more 90s influences baked in there, but in all the right ways. “Lost It All” is a harder Ride or Verve influenced track. “Falling Apart” has great vocal delivery and is mixed in a perfect way. A guitar-driven produced rock song, yet I can almost hear a Gary Newman 80s synth influence here an in some other areas. Big sing-along choruses, and melodic songwriting is here and as in the album as well. “Ultra” is more of a Metal riff song. Dirty bass riffs, with synth phaser effects. There are lots of good Eastern style riffs all over th album, as well as in “Diamond Thief,” a desert crawl with expansive guitar sounds.

New Age Healers | Moored

“Devotion” has a 60s garage sound, with thick, heavy bass lines and English Punk/New wave influences. “You’re The Sun” is an even harder, more “Motörhead dream-gaze.” Is that possible? Getting into some Hawkwind style space rock territory, but with a smoother vocal delivery. It’s a little more aggressive than the other tracks. “Lacuna” is a slow, lush, non-high frequency sonic outro song, Slowdive low BPM, with long, drawn out wave lengths of guitar delay, and vocal melody to close off the album. An excellent addition to the band’s growing catalog of sonic work.