“While singer and multi-instrumentalist Bonnie Bloomgarden and guitarist Larry Schemel knew their intention for the album before a single note was written, the actual nature and direction of the music was a mystery. The initial inspiration for the record came from the jubilant spirit of Ethiopian funk records the band had been listening to on tour, but once they began to channel the songs it seemed like the music came from somewhere not in the past but in the future.”
Singles:Hold My Hand / Under The Spell Of Joy / The Universe
Five new firecrackers to bang-up your favorite 48 hours…
‘Under The Spell Of Joy’ by DEATH VALLEY GIRLS (Los Angeles)
I just love this!! Big choir, booming beats, far-out sax, titanic tune, crazy finale. Surprise, surprise. It’s Death Valley Girls. Yes, the coolest graveyard garage rock band on the planet used to put a nightmarish spell on you, not one of joy. Listen up, you’ll love this too! FUN!
‘Moment In The Sun’ by SUNFLOWER BEAN
The NYC darlings return with a perfect piece of passionate pop. By far the best thing
they ever put on record, to my ears. Funky, sparkling, and sickly sticky. A 24-Karat hit!
‘7 Seconds’ by PORRIDGE RADIO (Brigthon,UK)
Earlier this year this amazing Dana Margolin fronted band released their contender-for-best-album-of-the-year tour de force Every Bad and they shine again on this brand new catchy stunner.
‘Get Famous’ by THE MOUNTAIN GOATS (North Carolina, US)
This steamy horns driven stroke compresses the Mountain Goats’ fervor into
a backhanded benediction, a three-minute pop entreaty to reach for the stars.
Their new album ‘Getting Into Knives‘ arrives 23rd October via Merge Records.
Fifteen Knockout Tracks on repeat this past month!
A fervent fusion of robust rippers and striking strokes.
Here’s Turn Up The Volume‘s Knockout August Team.
‘Vote That Fucker Out‘ by WRECKLESS ERIC and AMY RIGBY (UK/US)
An anger-fueled uppercut, the whole wide world should scream along. A firm middle-finger knockout. Let’s get together and shout at the top of our lungs until the elections
in November. Exit Trump is the world-saving goal, ladies and gents! Let’s act! Let’s sing…
‘A Hero’s Death’ by FONTAINES D.C. (Ireland)
Rollicking title track from the Irish post-punk misfits’ second album.
An unquestionable contender for longplayer of this science-fiction-like 2020.
‘Hail Taxi’ by METZ (Canada)
These Canadians deafening noiseniks have slash and trash chromosomes in their DNA. Don’t even try to resist this wall-balls-breaker, just surrender. New LP Atlas Vending arrives 9th October.
‘Fixer Upper’ by YARD ACT (Leeds, UK)
A mind-twisting crackerjack that’ll do your head in the way you like it. This funky as bloody hell banger sounds as if Mike Skinner and Sleaford Mods joined forces to experiment with intoxicating guitar riffs and turn up the decibels on for once. Cuts like a Swiss knife…
‘Hold My Hand’ by DEATH VALLEY GIRLS (Los Angeles)
Gloriously catchy, peppery and poppy with a cool vintage organ, shake and swing beats, 60s garage glow and Bonnie Bloomberg‘s peek-a-boo vocals. “Love is just like the ocean.”
‘You Say’ by MADAME SO (Paris/London)
A spunky standout. A warning message for all hostile killjoys out there. Kicking off
with a powered guitar riff, soon followed by Madame So‘s vox hitting the roof with
the titanic You Say chorus. Smoking stuff, ladies and gents…
‘The Soul Singer’ by THE WATERBOYS (Scotland)
High-energy stroke! A horns fueled belter from amplified folk troubadour Mike Scott and his band’s new – fourteenth – solid album Good Luck, Seeker.
‘Late At A Festival’ by BLUE STRAGGLERS (Sussex, UK)
Razorblade melodiousness drenched in a pool of kamikaze guitars, going forth and black like a roller coaster on the run. Blur‘s Britpop flair pumped up with tons of illegal decibels. Don’t come late at a festival with Blue Stragglers on the bill or they will find you and make you beg for mercy. You have been warned!…
.
‘Trump’s Still In Washington’ byBROKEN SOCIAL CONTRACT (Washington, US)
A razor-sharp rant about that 24/7 idiot in the White House. One-man-band Justin Donnelly delivers the fitting belter to ventilate our own fury. Play it loud,
play it on repeat, play it until a new real POTUS arrives in Washington.
‘Everybody Will Be Forgotten’ by FAST FRIENDS (Bay Area/Boston/Denmark)
This paranoia punk punch sounds like Weezer on dope, like Green Day kicking that American Idiot in the face, like the mental result of a lockdown psychosis, like if there
is no tomorrow. Jump and yell along before it’s too late. Right now, right here…
. ‘Forever’ by FOLK DEVILS (London)
Once a devoted indie rocker always a devoted indie rocker. Even are all these years you can hear and feel this band’s beating heart and feverish soul burning with strong-willed bravado and hungry desire. Dynamite sound, dynamite tune. Seems like Folk Devils are back forever despite the taste of life going wrong…
. ‘My Faith Is Larger’ by SAVING JACKIE (San Antonio, US)
A hot-tempered sucker-slam triggering every single nerve, every single muscle, and every single vein in your shuddering body. If you’re still mourning the loss of Rage Against The Machine, dry your eyes, rise from your bed, and go mental to Saving Jackie. Now!…
‘Burn’ by TEROUZ (Montreal)
This stunner wouldn’t be out if place on a Sisters Of Mercy album, while Terouz’s voice balances between Interpol‘s maestro Paul Banks and Editors‘ frontman Tom Smith.
Get up, stand up, and pirouette yourself dizzy…
. ‘Dirty Little Sinner’ by REGENT (Southampton)
This cracker blends Oasis‘ northern flair and Blur‘s power-pop catchiness. A steaming kinetic stomper to play to the max on your stereo so the neighbours can jump around
like doped monkeys too when the boiling chorus kicks in. Pump your fists in the air…
‘It’s OK To Bleed’ by HEAVY SALAD (Manchester, UK)
A trippy, mantra-like chant that will set your free. Light a joint, steal your grandparents’ hippie outfits and join Heavy Salad up there, eight miles high and dream of better times…
Two years after splendid LP Darkness RainsLos Angeles‘ garage rock amazons DEATH VALLEY GIRLS gear up a for a new one called UNDER THE SPELL OF JOY.
The new single HOLD MY HAND is online now. The group’s leading lady Bonnie Bloomgarden says: “Any relationship you have is an opportunity to make an agreement
with yourself! It’s a chance to learn to be more compassionate and to grow stronger and
more powerfully into the person you want to be and are meant to be! Hopefully, the other person will help along the way and grow with you! If not, peace and next, please.”
Hold My Hand is a rare love-relationship song. It’s gloriously catchy and peppery
poppy, and it works perfectly. A cool vintage DVG organ, shake and swing rhythms,
60s garage beat glow, Bloomberg‘s characteristic vocals, an electrifying guitar sequence, and a sticky chorus. I wonder if The Beatles would hold hands with the Girls? Anyway
‘love is just like the ocean.”
Start the beat…
In case you missed it here’s lead-single The Universe…
After spell-binding album Darkness Rains, their third album released two years
Los Angeles garage rock devils DEATH VALLEY GIRLS return from their graves
to record new longplayer UNDER THE SPELL OF JOY.
The band’s wonderful prima donna Bonnie Bloomgarden revealed details
about the new LP, besides the fact that it was inspired Ethiopian funk, in a
statement: “‘Under the Spell of Joy’ is a space-gospel record. We believe we served
as channels for what we think are guides. As we learn what the songs are about we
realize they are meant to be sang like chants, hymns, or spells. Most of the songs
were recorded with 12 voices, including a kids choir! We are learning that words with
intention and energy hold so much power, especially when said or sang with a group.”
Lead-single THE UNIVERSE “is a song to sing, a space to be, a time to think, remember,
and truly feel that not only are we all connected, but we are also being guided.”.
The grandly organ orchestrated and sax-stirring sound tells me that this far-out reflection is about the Death Valley Girls own universe. A still uncovered place in rock space where nothing is what it looks like or resonates like, where the band secretly prepares future actions for their ultimate goal: world domination. Yes, THEY are the vampire loving superhumans who actually guide us, the unsuspecting eartborns. Trust me, their next sonic move will disclose more about their master plan.
Let’s go back today to 2016, to my favorite DEATH VALLEY GIRLS album ‘GLOW IN THE DARK‘. A boiling record with blazing rock bangers such as Death Valley Boogie, Disco, and I’m A Man Too. Never a dull moment with utterly cool front lady Bonnie Bloomgarden and her turbulent gang who combine The Stooges‘ raw power, The Cramps‘ rockabilly lunacy, and Black Sabbath‘s metallic insanity while injecting the whole hullabaloo with a voodoo-ish sense of humor. Rollicking electricity is what you get, going berserk is what you should do. Right here, right now…
DEATH VALLEY GIRLS – 4AD Club, Diksmuide, Belgium – 23 February 2019
After following this red-hot Los Angeles garage gang since their 2014 debut LP Street Venom hit me in the face and having interviewed them at the end of 2017 I finally got
to see DEATH VALLEY GIRLS explode on stage, for the very first time, yesterday. Are they that special I hear you ask. Absolutely. This crazed quartet combines The Stooges‘ raw power, The Cramps‘ rockabilly lunacy, Black Sabbath‘s metallic insanity and they inject their sonic havoc with a cool, dark sense of humor. Oh, and one more thing: they love cemeteries. As expected the band’s ringleader Bonnie Bloomgarden led the rollicking troops last night. Intoxicating opener Abre Camino from new stirring album Darkness Rains set the heated tone of a stormy set instantly, with blazing bangers Death Valley Boogie, Disco, Electric High and the already classic stormer Disaster (Is What Were’ After) being the tumultuous highlights of a thunderous show…
… in between, ambiguous groove Gettin Hard, infectious poppy chant Pink Radiation
and organ injected swagger Wear Black showed their versatile songwriting caliber while Bonnie was wandering all over the place and hugged cracking bass player Pickle a couple
of times. She’s the charismatic eyecatcher of a hell-raising foursome that spoiled us all with a psych-o-delic Halloween experience in February. HAIL HAIL DEATH VALLEY GIRLS!
New longplayers that will have an impact on your ears and your speakers…
1. ‘Darkness Rains’ by DEATH VALLEY GIRLS (Los Angeles, CA, US) Halloween is just around the corner. Perfect timing for this voodoo-ish garage gang to launch their new tremendous LP. From glowing glam slams to freakish doom havoc with demonic guitars and Bonnie Bloomgarden‘s cutting primal screams. Freakish experience!
2. ‘Icon’ by THE VENUS FLY TRAP (Northampton, UK)
If Stephen King and David Lynch formed a band they would sound as creepily cool as this cult duo who formed in 1986. Now they return with some horror-ific electro punk fuel to inflame the coming Apocalypse! Don’t miss the fun, all you bloodthirsty pariahs out there.
3. ‘Lower’ by MEDICINE BOY (Berlin, Germany)
Welcome this twilight Cape Town duo to the dark side of your troubled mind. Their sonic electronic explorations vary from Mazzy Star‘s gloominess to The Kills‘ darkest blues moments. Mystifying voices and magnetic vibes. Join this truly fascinating journey!
4. s/t by RUDE DUDE AND THE CREEK FREAKS (Savannah, GA, US)
Expect sixties injected psychedelic jams, transcendent escapades, wah wah electricity, organ sultriness à la The Animals, reverberating guitar turbulence and echoing vocals
with a biting flair. Time to leave reality temporarily! Time now to go eight miles high!
5. ‘New Bad News’ by THE FABRICATORS (South London, UK) “We’re a garage band / We come from garageland” spitted The Clash iconic frontman Joe Strummer once. This is what The Fabricators‘s spirit is all about. Raw, energetic, confident and burning. Frank DIY post punk emotions from the street. Direct and honest and loud!
Los Angeles gloomful garage gang DEATH VALLEY GIRLS share another track from their upcoming new album. MORE DEAD is a “about how important and necessary each person
is, especially these days. We need numbers now more than ever to fight the good fight. After having experiences with people we love struggling to stay alive, we believe the harder the battle, the less one is able to ask for help.”
‘More Dead‘ is remarkable for its tribal drums, savage guitars, Bonnie Bloomgarden inevitable, diabolical vox and its hammering groove creating a sort of voodoo-like
dance rhythm. As much as Death Valley Girls are hooked on doom loaded hullabaloo they’re also tremendously committed to life. The human message at the end of the accompanying clip, directed by Dylan Mars Greenberg says it all: “Please reach out to
your suicidal friends. Please reach out to your loved ones. Please remember there are
people, animals and beings who love you. Your existence is important to this world.”
