SPILL ALBUM REVIEW: DEATH VALLEY GIRLS – WELCOME TO EARTH

DEATH VALLEY GIRLS
WELCOME TO EARTH
SUICIDE SQUEEZE RECORDS

Death Valley Girls’ Welcome to Earth isn’t your typical grief record. It’s like Hanna-Barbera’s Josie and the Pussycats having an existential crisis.

The album was born from the ashes of loss: lead singer and songwriter Bonnie Bloomgarden lost her home and all her possessions in California’s Eaton Fire last year, and shortly after, her beloved dog died. But the album isn’t maudlin or slow. It’s a frenetic, buzzing, and barely takes a second to sit and feel sorry for itself.

Opening track “Welcome to Earth” embraces 1960s eco-spirituality themes of connectivity and community. But as the album goes on, the depth of the loss grows more apparent and impossible to ignore.

“Basic Witch” uses electric organs and a kitschy spoken-word intro typical of a 1960s novelty Halloween record. But it’s with this track that the ominous vibe of the album grows more apparent, giving the listener a sense of dread that makes you wonder if you somehow travelled back in time to August 8, 1969 and found yourself at a party on 10050 Cielo Drive.

“Sing For Yourself” combines ride cymbal and spaghetti western guitar to give the number an uneasy, swaying tempo that contributes to the ominous party vibe. It sounds less like a sunny beach song and more like it belongs on the soundtrack to a docudrama about the dark side of the 1960s hippie movement.

The best song by far is “Fire and Brimstone”, which sounds like an outtake from David Bowie’s 1974 album Young Americans. It’s a toe-tapping plastic soul number with a chorus that brings to mind a scene where our heroes enter a crazy elevator and are immediately shot down to Hell to be poked by red devils with pointy beards and pitchforks. Sax player Sarah Safaie tears it up on this track that wouldn’t feel out of place on a mid-century dance floor.

The retro theme continues on “Life So Far,” a bouncy, lyrically nihilistic track about realizing you’re left holding the crumbling ashes of what you fought so hard to win. Tethered by a crashing percussion rhythm courtesy of drummer Bailey Chapman and the strumming of a surf-guitar riff from Laena Myers, Bloomgarden sings, “it all came crashing down/burned to the ground” with a tasteful vocal sustain on the word “burned” that recalls Darlene Love’s work on the Crystals’ “He’s a Rebel.”

The closing track, “How Losing Everything in the Fire Taught Me to Love Myself,” feels at first listen to be an ironic dig at toxic-positivity clickbait titles. But it’s also got a sincere quality to it. Ultimately, it ties up the album’s themes of loss, confusion, and how to go on after total devastation, concluding that you can never really recover what you lost, but you can make something new out of what you remember of it.

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