A lot of bands get softer as their careers progress. Whether that’s due to the righteous anger of youth fading, record companies and producers “sanding off the rough edges” for commercial radio, or just the members getting old, it’s an annoyingly common career trajectory. The Replacements, Cheap Trick, pretty much every punk band that went “New Wave”…heck, even the mighty Led Zeppelin’s last album is pretty flaccid, if you’re willing to admit it.
So it’s a pleasure to report that the San Francisco band The Spiral Electric have bucked this trend, and grown steadily heavier, in live and on record, since their earliest incarnation. While they were never exactly “soft” in their approach, their first two EPs, “Upon Your Shore” (2015) and “Ask The Sky” (2016) owed more to the shuffling riffs of John Squire than what we would call “stoner rock.” Their most recent effort, the self-titled “The Spiral Electric”, continues their journey from jangly psych with occasional freakouts, to full-on “heavy psych” with riffs to spare.
Their live shows have gotten more intense, too. This reviewer was lucky to catch them playing live around the time of their debut EP, and except some crunchy bits on singles like “Ghost In The Machine” or “Upon Your Shore”, they weren’t exactly what one would describe as a heavy rock band. Hear the band now, however, and most tracks on their latest release such as “Drown My Sorrows” qualify as full-bore, high-octane desert-highway riff-rock. “Hole In My Soul” is filled with punishing guitar tones.
It’s not like they were ever candyfloss lightweights. I’ve always liked this band. But on their earlier recordings, I was drawn to the heavier sections of their catalog. Apparently the band were too. This most recent release takes you by the throat and makes you pay attention from first note to last. Songwriting, like most things, benefits from experience and ongoing craft. The hand of late producer Steve Kille (bass, Dead Meadow, RIP) also can’t be overlooked, as that band clearly knew its way around a riff. Sometimes this record almost sounds like it could be described as “doom-psych.”
Most tracks on their latest self-titled album are still based in melody and groove, but most of them are full-on rockers. There are of course discursions into different shades and moods. “Staring Down The Barrel” somehow merges surf rock and thundering psych riffs. “Marbles” passes the current Spiral Electric sound through a Merseyside filter, with vocalist Clay Andrews turning in his best vocal performance of the record, sounding like Richard Ashcroft back when he was still storming heaven.
The record isn’t without issues, of course. “The True Nature of Sacrifice” overstays its welcome and takes far too long to kick in, and then spends too much time thrashing about at the end. And it must be said that there are areas where the vocals could have used a little refinement, sounding more like guide demos than finished takes. And a few tracks like “Wildflowers” and album-closer “I Could Be Healed,” veer back to their earlier, more-jangle pop-oriented sound. (Despite that whinging, this reviewer really likes “I Could Be Healed”) These are quibbles in an otherwise supremely enjoyable and satisfying heavy rock album.
What’s most surprising to me is that The Spiral Electric remain unsigned to a label. Their earlier EPs are all self-released, as is this, their full-length album. Labels like Ripple or Magnetic Eye should be lining up to help these guys out. The Spiral Electric, by all accounts, have a new record all-but-finished recording and in the can, and it will be ready to release in the earliest months of 2025. It seems any label with half a lid of sense would give it a proper release to the wider psych-rock world. They may just need a slight nudge to get on bills like Levitation or Desert Daze, and they would be off to the stoner-rock, heavy-psych races.
Social Media Links:
https://linktr.ee/spiralelectric
https://thespiralelectric.bandcamp.com
https://www.facebook.com/TheSpiralElectric
https://www.instagram.com/thespiralelectric
