The Comas, Spells

No, I’ve never taken drugs (aside, mind you, from an accidental high I got just from being at a House of Pain/Cypress Hill concert, but that wasn’t intentional…). No real good reason why not, no big X’s scrawled across my fists; I just never have, and eh, I’m okay with that. So, given that, I generally have to resort to other means to do any kind of mind-expanding. Over the years, it’s been music that really does the trick, that lets me just lean back and bliss out. Cue The Comas’ new album, Spells.

I’m not entirely sure what I was expecting, but this wasn’t really it. What I’d heard from The Comas previously had been fairly standard, laid-back indie-rock fare with an O.C.-friendly tinge to it and an endearing love of sci-fi themes (see “Last Transmission,” off of 2004’s Conductor) — good, yes, but nothing really out of the ordinary.

From the first blast of “Red Microphones,” however, it becomes clear that the gloves have not only been taken off but have been set on fire and dropped off the roof of the building. The song is a trippy, seductive burst of sunshiy psychedelic rock, a quirky re-envisioning of the valiant sword-wielding hero as mic-slinging monster slayer (er, I think…). This is the kind of music that makes me just want to lay back in a sunny place and bob my head along, smiling all the while. Think the Starlight Mints cramming their surreal pop through Marshall stacks and fuzz pedals, or the Flaming Lips with just a hint of the sinister (which makes since, as producer Bill Racine’s worked with the Lips in the past), and you’ll come close to the overall sound of Spells.

The whole thing is soaked in a sorta-creepily-smiling lysergic haze, pumped full of loud, overfuzzed guitar, and topped off with vocals just this side of Rivers Cuomo. Oddly, despite the band’s Chapel Hill beginnings (as a joke alt-country band, or so I’ve heard), they seem to have the most in common with L.A. psych-rockers Silversun Pickups. Tracks like “Come My Sunshine” and “Stoneded” are simultaneously gorgeously distorted and furious, thrusting along in full-on rock majesty mode — I particularly like how the latter song slowly disintegrates to nothing at the end, like the night’s partying fades to daytime responsibility every sunrise. “New Wolf” is similar, frantic and thunderous, with a driving beat that grabs you by the head and doesn’t let go. There’s just something sublime about guitars that sound so thick and fuzzed-out you almost imagine you could reach out and grab the noise with both hands.

Of course, you’ve got to have some delicacy to balance out The Rock, so there’s also some eerier, slower stuff, like “I Am A Spider” (which features some awesomely crazed Robert Quine-esque guitar leads), “Sarah T.” (which almost sounds like the Byrds), or “Thistledown” (which reminds me of Sparklehorse in its gentle wooziness). The album finishes with “After The Afterglow,” quiet but still drenched in low-key noise, a figurative chill-out room tacked on at the the rest of the album.

And then, just as it’s completely bowled you over, Spells is gone. Poof. Who needs drugs with rock like this?