Rose Windows: The Sun Dogs (Sub Pop)

 |   |  <1 min read

Rose Windows: Native Dreams
Rose Windows: The Sun Dogs (Sub Pop)

Credit where it's due.

Few bands simultaneously conjure up broody Black Sabbath, prog-pomp King Crimson, desperate Siouxsie Banshee and the hippie-vibe of the Incredible String Band . . . and expect to get away with it.

Especially not if they add – to pile-driving metal guitars and the Middle Eastern exoticism of their singer Rabia Shabeen Qazi – wide swathes of quasi-mystical songs about priests and spirit warriors, women with wingless arms (in their world that's not unusual) and guitarist/leader Chris Cheveyo who exists in the netherworld between Zeppelin (check the six minute coda) and Jefferson Airplane.

So here's an impressively eclectic debut from a Seattle band (home of the similar, better but much-ignored Sky Cries Mary) who have their Airplane radio-length song in Heavenly Days and also tick off folk-blues Zeppelin moments in the blues-based Walkin' With a Woman and the Season of the Serpents (with flute).

Yep, this is widescreen retro-but-relevant trip-rock. Less an album than a lifestyle accessory . . . if your lifestyle comes with patchouli and benign but illegal drugs. Start with the exceptional 10 minute This Shroud.

Consumer warning: some Doors/Airplane fans never came back from such things, so don't drive during or after.

Weirdly seductive.

Like the sound of this? Then start here. And be careful out there.

Share It

Your Comments

post a comment

More from this section   Music at Elsewhere articles index

BEST OF ELSEWHERE 2008 Deerhunter: Microcastle (4AD)

BEST OF ELSEWHERE 2008 Deerhunter: Microcastle (4AD)

To be honest, this album by Bradford Cox and his Athens, Georgia band -- he's also the man behind his solo project Atlas Sounds, an album reviewed very favourably here some weeks ago -- sounds like... > Read more

Tom Lark: Brave Star (digital outlets)

Tom Lark: Brave Star (digital outlets)

One of the many advantages of dream pop is that it delivers on its product description in a way that other labels – alternative (to what?), indie and metal – simply don't because they... > Read more

Elsewhere at Elsewhere

LEE MORGAN, THE SIDEWINDER REISSUED (2014): Smack, a soul-jazz hit and a shooting

LEE MORGAN, THE SIDEWINDER REISSUED (2014): Smack, a soul-jazz hit and a shooting

The luck of Lee Morgan -- such as it was -- ran out in the early hours of February 19, 1972 at Slugs Saloon in New York CIty. That's when his partner Helen More -- a hustler and former prostitute... > Read more

THE BARGAIN BUY: The B-52's; Original Album Series

THE BARGAIN BUY: The B-52's; Original Album Series

To this day the remaining B-52's are ambivalent about the production on their self-titled debut by Island Records boss Chris Blackwell. As recently as this month the band's drummer Keith Strickland... > Read more