Posted in audiObelisk on August 6th, 2025 by JJ Koczan
San Fran psych rockers The Spiral Electric are releasing their new single “I Want to Share” this Friday, Aug. 8. Don’t tell anybody, but if you’re cool about it, you can stream it now on the player below. Actually you can stream it even if you’re a jerk, but if you are, you’ll have a harder time getting to the band’s vibe on the sub-five-minute ‘single version’ of the tune, and that’d be a bummer of a loss.
“I Want to Share” is the second The Spiral Electric single of 2025 behind “In Too Deep” (premiered here), and before that, the four-piece had the standalone track “Shadow in the Dark” (premiered here) in 2023, which was the first mention of a sophomore LP from the band to follow their 2019 self-titled debut (review here). The album, for which “In Too Deep” and “I Want to Share” are intended, has been years in the making in part because the original production was helmed by Steve Kille, best known as the bassist of Dead Meadow, who passed away in May 2024. One hopes that the relative quickness with which “I Want to Share” arrives after “In Too Deep” hints toward the album coming soon, but I know nothing about it, so that’s nothing more than speculation.
The track wakes up around its guitar strum and intertwining lead, a ’60s snare shuffle underneath and a winding line of swirl that dissipates to make room for the vocals. They’re in the verse quickly — no time to waste — as the acoustic strings come forward, and momentum is quickly on their side. The lines, “I wanna get you high/We’re gonna get so stoned,” anchor the verse as it opens into the chorus with some aspect of garage push in with the sopping wet tonality that surrounds and the melodic, shoegazey vocals from Clay Andrews (also guitar, piano, percussion), joined in the band by guitarist Nicolas Percey, bassist Ryan McKnight and drummer Matias Drago, all four of them aligning around a fluid, brighter procession as they cross the halfway mark. Although it’s laid back in spirit, there’s a definitive structure at work and The Spiral Electric carry out the single with suitably deceptive efficiency.
Bonus points to the band for a specifically positivist theme, based as the title hints around the notion of sharing. That is the kind of thing that shouldn’t be considered a progressive idea, but is, thanks largely to the hateful idiocy of our times. Spending four-plus minutes in contrast to that is welcome, and if that means The Spiral Electric don’t fit in this age, that is only to their benefit and that of any escapist who might take them on.
Also, “I want to share” is how I feel about music all the time. It’s why this site still exists.
To music, then:
The Spiral Electric, “I Want to Share” track premiere
Clay Andrews on “I Want to Share”:
This song is a bit of fun, a contrast to the heavier subject matter we’ve been doing the last couple of albums. It’s an older song of ours that finally found its time, and the chords and riffs are written by Nic. I wrote the lyrics laying on my back on the grass and smoking weed in a public park on a summer afternoon after a long bicycle ride, thinking about all of the music festivals I’d been to and wishing I could’ve brought everyone I know along with me. When we were choosing songs to record for this upcoming LP, so many of them were so dark that I really wanted to include something a bit more upbeat to lighten the mood. Even darkness must pass… and shake its ass, once in a while.
It’s a witch’s brew of sounds, reaching into our past as well as stepping forward– combining the grooves of Primal Scream, Sly & the Family Stone, and the Black Crowes, with the swagger of Oasis & Led Zeppelin. If you’ve been to our live shows since recording began, you’ve already shaken thy ass to it, it’s called “I Want to Share” and it’s for everyone who wants to just get together and have a little fun in these divisive times. It’s also the last of the songs fully engineered and mixed by Steve Kille (Dead Meadow) from our long-delayed LP, “The Overview Effect”.
The Spiral Electric live: August 21 — Palmdale w/ The Freeks & The Oil Barons August 22 — Los Angeles w/ MAL + TBA August 23 — San Diego w/ OLD BLOOD + MAL
The Spiral Electric: Clay Andrews : Vocals / Guitar / Piano / Percussion Nicolas Percey : Guitars Ryan McKnight : Bass Matias Drago : Drums
San Fran psych rockers The Spiral Electric pull back the veil on their new single “In Too Deep” tomorrow, May 16. The six-minute piece feels like ’60s psych-rock pulled through a filter of ’90s revivalist edge as something slightly sinister drips from the molten tone of the initial guitar quickly topped by Clay Andrews‘ layered vocals. The vibe is mellow, intentionally oversweet to set up a fuller-toned chorus that now we call shoegazey but six decades ago would’ve just been rock and roll.
My touchstone for drifty, lose-yourself-in-it psychedelia of such fluid order is defunct Canadian nodders Quest for Fire, and I know that the place The Spiral Electric reside for “In Too Deep” isn’t where they always dwell, but they pull off the single with especially hypnotic aplomb as Andrews (guitar and synth in addition to vocals), lead guitarist Nicolas Percey, bassist Ryan McKnight and drummer Marias Drago flow through a heady depth of mix resolving in a transposed “Sweet Dreams” riff as they make their way out.
Both the 1960s and the 1990s were a long-ass time ago, and it’s not my intention to oversimplify or generalize what’s going on in The Spiral Electric‘s sound in the face of the more complex aural truths therein. That is to say, don’t just go by the numbers. Their previous single “Shadow in the Dark” (premiered here) and their 2019 self-titled double-LP (review here) likewise had their more soothing moments, but “In Too Deep” goes further such that even when it ‘gets loud’ as the wash takes hold a bit before the three-minute mark going into the hook, the serenity of the vocal melody is maintained, and so the direction of the song abides correspondingly, even as the tambourine literally and figuratively brings shake to the procession.
So is it? ‘In too deep,’ I mean. Have the band meandered too far into the ethereal? Hard no, from where I sit. Instead, The Spiral Electric make striking a difficult balance sound easy as “In Too Deep” ebbs and flows, and the chorus here is delivered gently and memorably both times it cycles through. My honest hope at this point is that eventually “In Too Deep” and “Shadow in the Dark,” which came out in 2023, make their way onto a follow-up to the self-titled, and that seems to be the plan. The album, titled The Overview Effect, was being recorded with Dead Meadow bassist Steve Kille prior to his passing last year. I do not know if it’s done or what the status is, but if you notice this and “Shadow in the Dark” are both tagged as the ‘single version.’ This implies ‘album versions,’ and yes, those apparently exist, if not yet in the public sphere.
Instead, for now, maybe take a breath and let the rest worry about itself later. There’s plenty to keep busy with worrying, for sure, but it’ll still be there in six minutes. See if you can get yourself to this one and meet the melody on its own level. If not, it’ll still be there later. Contrary to what the streaming services and content-driven social media tell you, this stuff doesn’t expire.
Enjoy:
The Spiral Electric, “In Too Deep” track premiere
“This is one of the last tracks fully engineered and mixed by Steve Kille before his illness overtook him,” says Clay Andrews. “I edited a couple of minutes out for the ‘single version’ with the help of Daniel Dietrick (Ozean), the full version will be on the album.”
Produced by Clay Andrews & Steve Kille Engineered & Mixed by Steve Kille at Wiggle Room Studio Additional engineering by Daniel Dietrick Mastering by Tim Green / Louder Studios Cover artwork by Matias Drago / Logo by Alan Forbes / Layout by Clay Andrews Music : Clay Andrews & Nicolas Percey Lyrics : Clay Andrews
The Spiral Electric: Clay Andrews : Vocals / Guitar / Piano / Percussion Nicolas Percey : Guitars Ryan McKnight : Bass Matias Drago : Drums
San Francisco heavy psych rockers The Spiral Electric release their new single “Shadow in the Dark” this Friday. You can stream it now below. For the four-piece, it is the first outing to follow their 2019 self-titled debut 2LP (review here), as well as two preceding EPs, and it marks the first appearance of new bassist Ryan McKnight, who can be heard rumbling beneath the mellow fuzz of guitarists Clay Andrews (also vocals/synth) and Nicolas Percey (leads); the smooth undulations of low end and spacious psychedelic drift set to the steady flow of Matias Drago‘s drumming. Like the self-titled debut that it follows, the new song was engineered and mixed by Dead Meadow‘s Steve Kille (Andrews is also credited with production), and it is the first herald of the band’s second record, which will hopefully be out before the end of the year.
“Shadow in the Dark” is not coy in its appeal. The melody is warm and comes through in Andrews‘ vocals as well as the guitars, which during the verse bring more open-feeling notes, like a West Coast King Buffalo almost, but working toward the end of building into the chorus, which fills the space created by the verse with post-grunge nod, unpretentious, engaging, and serene but still heavy in both tone and presence. Also theme. The song, as Andrews discusses below, is based lyrically based around a discussion of cultural thanatos, the urge toward and fascination with — maybe fixation on — death, as embodied through interest in serial killers and murder documentaries, cults and so on, both drawing and repelling those who delve into that world. The death this week of the Ted Kaczynski, the Unabomber, is certainly a relevant example, but from Law & Order through Star Wars through the ‘Serial’ podcast, you don’t have to look far to find instances of violence and violent death piquing public interest.
But grim (and in a loose sense, not performatively so) as it might be, “Shadow in the Dark” wants nothing aurally for color. Particularly in Percey‘s guitar, but also in the synth and wash of effects, a brightness comes through that rests well in the dynamic structure of the verses and the hook. And that hook holds the mellow spirit that the song establishes at the outset while expanding both the palette and energy of the piece itself. Considering it as a precursor to a full-length release, one can only look forward to what else might be in store. If you like your psych rock to offer plenty of both — that is, psych and rock — and to offer structure without sounding hindered by it, you might think about giving it a shot. The absolute most that doing so can cost you is five and a half minutes of your day, and as I’ve listened to the track, I don’t know, seven or 15 times this morning while putting this post together, I’ll speak from experience and say it’s easily worth that.
I’ll hope to have more on The Spiral Electric‘s next record, including what it’s called, closer to the release.
Until then, please, enjoy:
The Spiral Electric, “Shadow in the Dark” track premiere
Clay Andrews on “Shadow in the Dark”:
We’ve been describing this track as “heavy psych noir” because of the quiet, creepy sections and roaring choruses. It’s a collaboration between longtime members Clay Andrews (that’s me, haha — vocals, rhythm guitar, synths) and Nicolas Percey (lead guitar), with new bassist Ryan McKnight, making his songwriting debut with us as well as his recording debut as rhythm section with Matias Drago (drums). The lyrics were inspired by the glut of new documentaries about serial killers & cult murders during the Covid lockdown, and the sense of conflict I felt about the enduring public fixation with murder– being both interested in the investigations but also repelled by the endless stream of books & documentaries on these crimes and also put-off by the certainty that most people seem to have, that these horrors could never happen to themselves — despite the deciding factor in some killings being a window left open or a gate left unlocked. The production purposely reflects that conflict with an edge of paranoia, with the howling feedback at the end recreating the sound of sirens and police helicopters swarming a distant location in the suburban sprawl. As with our 2019 self-titled double-LP, Steve Kille (of Dead Meadow) engineered and mixed this and the LP it’s taken from, and he also mastered this single version.
Posted in Reviews on January 8th, 2020 by JJ Koczan
Welcome to Day Three of The Obelisk’s Winter 2020 Quarterly Review. It’s gonna be kind of a wild one. There’s a lot going on across this batch of 10 records, and it gets kind of weird — also, it doesn’t — so sit tight. It’ll be fun either way. At least I hope so. I’ll let you know when I’m finished writing. Ha.
Today we pass the halfway point on the road to 50 reviews by Friday. I think I’m feeling alright up to this point. It’s been a crunch behind the scenes, but it usually is and I’ve done this plenty of times now, so it’s not so bad. I always hold my breath before getting started, but once I’m in it, I rarely feel anymore overwhelmed than I might on any other given day. Which is still plenty, but you know, you make it work.
So let’s do that.
Quarterly Review #21-30:
Alcest, Spiritual Instinct
Perhaps unsurprisingly given the label’s modus in this regard as it’s picked up bands from the heavy underground over the last eight to 10 years — arguably a movement that began with Graveyard in 2012 — but Parisian post-black metal innovators Alcest make something of an aesthetic shift with their first outing for Nuclear Blast, Spiritual Instinct. Melody, of course, remains central to their purposes, but in the nine-minute side B opener “L’Île des Morts” as in its side A counterpart “Les Jardins de Minuit,” the subsequent “Protection” and “Sapphire” and even in the crescendo — glorious wash as it is — of the closing title-track, one can hear a sharper, decidedly metallic edge to the guitar and impact of the drums. That’s a turn from 2016’s Kodama (review here), which offered more of a conceptual progressivism, and of course the prior 2014 LP, Shelter (review here), which cast of metallic trappings almost entirely. Why the change? Who cares, it works, and they still have room for the cinematic keyboard-led drama of “Le Miroir” and plenty of the wistful emotionalism that’s been their hallmark since their debut in 2007. They’ve long since mastered their approach and Spiritual Instinct serves as another example of their being able to make their sound do whatever they want.
Four records and just about a decade deep into a tenure that began with the 2010 Rock Music EP (review here), Iowa heavy rockers Superchief have found ways to bring an inventiveness to what’s still an ostensibly straightforward approach. Moontower, named for a lookout point where — at least presuming from the album’s artwork — people tailgate and get drunk, finds the dudely five-piece no less embroiled in burl than they’ve ever been, but using samples and other elements in interesting ways as with the revving motor matching step with the drums at the start of “Barking Out at the Blood Moon” or keyboards in “Rock ‘n’ Roll War” filling out the breaks where the riffs take a step back. Handclaps early in “Beer Me Motherfucker” — as much post-“Introduction” mission statement for the LP as a whole as anything — set the party tone, and from the shaker on “The Approach” to the Southern tinged shred and organ on closer “Priority of the Summer,” a car speeding by at the finish, Superchief find ways to make each of their songs stand out from its surroundings. Then they pair that with choice riffery, pro-shop sound and hooks. Sure enough, it’s once again a winning formula and a distinct showing of personality and craft that still comports with classic heavy style.
Boston duo Test Meat are so utterly bullshit-free as to be almost intimidating. Guitarist/vocalist Darryl Shepard (Kind, Blackwolfgoat, Hackman, Milligram, etc.) and drummer Michael Nashawaty (Planetoid) dig into heavy grunge and noise rock influences across a 10-track/27-minute full-length that resounds with punker roots and an ethic of willful straightforwardness. It’s not that the music is so intense there would be no room for frills, it’s that the structures are so tight and so purposefully barebones that they’d be incongruous. And it’s not that Test Meat are writing half-hearted songs, either. Frankly, neither the quality of their material nor the sharpness of the sound they captured at New Alliance Studio with Alec Rodriguez would remotely lead one to believe so, and nothing with such stylistic clarity happens by mistake. This is a band with a mission, and Enjoy finds them bringing that mission to life with a complete lack of pretense. It’s a reminder of what made grunge so appealing in the first place some 30 years and an entire internet ago. Songs and performance. Yes.
Following a 2018 live demo, Portuguese instrumental three-piece Stones of Babylon — guitarist Rui Belchior, bassist João Medeiros, drummer Pedro Branco — embark with a conceptualist intent on their debut full-length, Hanging Gardens, issued through Raging Planet. An opening sample in the leadoff title-track describing the hanging gardens of Babylon sets the stage for what the band goes on to describe with wordless atmospheres over the five-song/47-minute long-player, their vision of heavy psychedelia touched with a suitable Middle Eastern/North African influence in the initial unfolding of the meditative 11-minute “Coffea Arabica” or the winding lead work over the punchy low end of “Black Pig’s Secret Megalith.” But Hanging Gardens is still very much a heavy rock release, and its material showcases that in tone and mood, with volume changes and builds taking hold like that in centerpiece “Ziggurat,” which in its second half sets a march of distorted largesse nodding forth until its final crashout. They save the most drift for “Babylonia (The Deluge),” and if they’re finishing with the story of the flood, one can’t help but wonder what narrative course they might follow in a second record. On the other hand, if one comes out of Hanging Gardens trying to envision Stones of Babylon‘s future, then the debut would seem to have done its job, and so it has. There’s stylistic and tonal promise, and with the edge of storytelling, an opportunity for development of which one hopes they avail themselves.
Frontman Argy and Greek heavy rock institution Nightstalker return with their eighth album in a quarter-century run, Great Hallucinations. Also their first LP for Heavy Psych Sounds after issuing 2016’s As Above So Below (review here) on Oak Island Records, it’s an up-to-par eight-track collection of catchy tracks marked out by psychedelic elements but underpinned by traditionalist structures, Argy‘s distinctive frontman presence, and an all-around unforced feeling of a mature, established band doing what they do. Not going through the motions in the sense of fulfilling some perceived obligation to stay on the road, but creating the songs they want to create in nothing less than the manner they want to create them. I won’t take away from the roll of “Seven out of Ten,” but as “Cursed” taps into a legacy of European heavy rock that runs from Dozer‘s turn of the century work — not to mention Nightstalker‘s own — to outfits today, it’s hard not to appreciate an act being so assured in what they do in terms of execution while actually doing it. In that way, Great Hallucinations is as refreshing as it is familiar.
From their beginnings in garage doom and subsequent dive into exploitation/vamp psych, Barcelona’s Lewis and the Strange Magics put themselves in even weirder territory on their third album, Melvin’s Holiday, centering a story around the titular character whose life is in turmoil and so he goes on vacation. The sound of the band seems to do likewise, veering into ’70s lounge sleaze and island influences, toying with funky rhythms and keyboards amid catchy choruses across what still would have to be called an experimental 34-minute run. It is a concept album, to be sure, and one that comes through in its stylistic choices like the dreamy keyboards of the centerpiece “Carpet Sun” or the fuzzy stomp in “Sad in Paradise” and the percussion amid the Ween-sounding lead guitar buzz of “Lounge Decadence.” This could be Lewis and the Strange Magics working purposefully to cast off any and all expectation that might be placed on them, or it could just be a one-off whim, but there’s no question they pull off an impressive turn and carry the concept through in story and substance. When it comes to what they might do next time, the payoff of closer “Afternoon on the Sand” serves as one more demonstration that the band can do whatever the hell they want with their sound, so I’d expect them to do no less than precisely that.
The debut EP from Lansing, Michigan, four-piece Room 101, called simply The Burden, would seem to take a scorched-earth approach to atmospheric sludge, setting their balance to exploring ambient textures and samples in pieces like “You Will Never Know Security” — which, sure enough, samples 1984 to recount the origin of the band’s name — and the brief “A Place to Bury Strangers,” while the churning “As the Crow Flies” and “Missing Rope” present an outright extremity that comes through in post-Godflesh vocal barks and a Through Silver in Blood-style intensity of churn and general approach. Yet I wouldn’t necessarily call Room 101 post-metal — at least not here. The solo on “Missing Rope” seems to draw from more traditional sources, and the manner in which the chugging in “Plague Dogs” caps with a sudden quick series of hits recalls grindcore’s pivoting brutality. One might hope all of these elements get fleshed out more over subsequent releases, but as a first outing, part of The Burden‘s promise is also drawn from the sheer rawness of its impact and the lack of compromise in its wrench of gut.
Albatross Overdrive‘s 2016 LP, Keep it Running (review here), ran 31 minutes. Their follow-up, Ascendant, reaches to 33, but loses two tracks in the doing. Clearly, one way or the other, this is a conscious ethic on the band’s part, and it tells you something about their approach to heavy rock as well. There’s nothing too fancy about it — even in “Come Get Some,” which is the longest song the band have ever written at 6:40 — and they are not an outfit to waste their time. Structures run from verse to chorus to verse to chorus led through by guitarists Andrew Luddy and Derek Phillips and Art Campos‘ gritty delivery with an expectedly solid underpinning from bassist Mark Abshire (ex-Fu Manchu) and drummer Rodney Peralta and songs like the careening title-track and the blues-licked shover “Undecided” are enough to give the impression that anything else would be superfluous. They’re not lacking style — because ’70s-meets-’90s-straight-ahead-heavy is, indeed, a style — but it’s the level of their craft that stands them out.
Kyuss-style riffing takes a beating at the hands of Chicago newcomers Cloud Cruiser — who are not to be confused with Denver’s Cloud Catcher — who make their debut on vinyl through Shuga Records with I: Capacity, giving an aggressive push to what’s commonly considered a more laid back sound. In tone and rhythm and general gruffness, they are a deceptively pointed outfit, with turns of broader groove like that at the outset of “575” that speak to more influences than simply those of the Cali desert. They start off catchy and familiar-if-reshaped, though, on “Transmission” and “Glow,” letting their tale of alien abduction unfold across the lyrics while setting up the shifts that “Gone” and “575” and the thick-boogie of “Orbitalclast” will make before the EP’s would-be-clean-but-for-all-that-dirt-it’s-kicked-up 23-minute run is through. The balance they present speaks to a background in metal, though if they’re fresh arrivals in this realm of heavy, you’d never know it from the lumbering finish they present. Sometimes you just gotta get mean to get your point across. It suits
It is a progressive interpretation of fuzz ‘n’ buzz that San Francisco four-piece The Spiral Electric realize on their self-titled, self-released debut long-player, with recording and mixing by Dead Meadow‘s Steve Kille, the band — vocalist/synthesist/noisemaker/guitarist/percussionist/co-producer Clay Andrews, lead guitarist/backing vocalist Nicolas Percey, bassist Michael Summers and drummer Matias Drago — bridge the generally disparate realms of heavy psych and riffer heavy rock, giving a dreamy sensibility to “Marbles” with no less an organic vibe than they brought to the howling, attitudinal push of “No Bridge Left Unburned” earlier. They skillfully mess with the scale across the lengthy 14-track span, and thereby hold their audience for the duration in longer pieces like “The True Nature of Sacrifice” (8:24) as easily as they do in a series of three episodic interludes of noise, field recordings, synth, etc. This is a band ready, willing and able to space. the hell. out., and after listening to the record, you’d be a fool if you wanted to try. Not that they don’t have aspects to shore up or shifts that could be tightened and so on, but from ambition to fruition, it’s the kind of first record bands should aspire to make.
