Album Review
Spaghetti western is usually listed under the heading of band influences, not genres, although Kirkpatric Thomas, the man behind the B-movie sound of Spindrift and the band's main songwriter and guitarist, might beg to differ. He's taken his love of sun blasted landscapes, distorted twangy guitars, and squinty eyed heroes and villains and spun them into a shimmering, mirage-drenched ambience that can only be called psychedelic spaghetti western music. The twisted musicality of Ennio Morricone's early work blends with the haunted noirish resonance of Bruno Nicolai (Morricone's arranger) and Thomas' own fevered vision to create expansive cinematic soundscapes made more for dreaming, or even hallucinating, than dancing, not that the music lacks energy or drive. "Ace Coletrane" could be the theme song from a '60s western TV show that was never made, with twang-heavy guitar, spacy mariachi horns, and a galloping drumbeat. "The Wind" brings to mind Howlin' Wolf dueling with Norman Greenbaum's "Spirit in the Sky" and kicking said spirit's ass. Thomas delivers a moaning vocal that drowns in its own melancholy echo. "The Klezmer Song" blends dark Eastern European gypsy thrash, ghostly whistling Farfisa, and a wordless boozy chorus. "If You Don't Like It (Get the F**k Out)" is electroclash rockabilly with a minimal vocal fighting against a wall of industrial noise, while "Frozen Memories" is a skewed waltz played by a drunken carnival orchestra as they prowl the midnight midway for unwary suckers. On the moody side there's "The New West" a wide open invocation that plays western twang against urban fuzzed out guitar whilst Thomas croons incomprehensibly in the background; "Excrete from the Collective Subconscious" rides a beat that sounds like an anxious heart and combines slide guitar flourishes with another incomprehensible and more than slightly insane vocal. "A Celebration of the Human Body" is a murky R&B tango that sounds more like a suicide note than a celebration, full of ghostly voices, stabs of distorted guitar, and minimal percussion. It's hard to imagine anyone out on the dancefloor grooving to this music, save perhaps spaced out Goths sipping absinthe while they cast a clandestine glance into a mirror to make sure their makeup is just so. There may be lyrics here and there, but the mix usually distorts the human voice making it just another element in the album's sinister atmosphere. ~ j. poet, Rovi
