Death Valley Girls return with the announcement of their upcoming LP, “Islands in the Sky”, out February 24th! With the announce comes cosmic lead-single “What Are The Odds” Sounding every bit like they’re conducting a seance on speed, mystic garage-rockers Death Valley Girls today return with a lightning-strike of a new single, accompanied by a video of the band reincarnated in red beehive wigs at an epic pool party, quickly expanding into an exploration of existing in parallel universes and multidimensional space/time.
Bloomgarden says of the new song: “When we wrote [2016’s] ‘I’m a Man Too’ we were trying to revisit No Doubt’s ‘I’m Just a Girl,’ but through a new lens. ‘What Are the Odds’ is in the same way an investigation /revisitation of Madonna’s ‘Material Girl,’ but with a DVG spin. We love to think about consciousness, and existence, and we very much believe in some type of reincarnation, but also that this experience isn’t linear, there isn’t a past and future, there’s something else going on! What is it? Is it a simulation, are we simulated girls??!”
The album began to take shape when Bloomgarden and drummer Rikki Styxx retreated to a cabin in the California woods on New Year’s Day 2022. With guitarist Larry Schemel spking the mix and the addition of new bassist and co-lead singer Westervelt, the band made “Islands in the Sky” at Mark Rains’ Station House Studio in Echo Park.
For the better part of a decade, LA’s scrappy rock n’ roll mystics Death Valley Girls have used their music as a means of tapping into a communal cosmic energy. On albums like “Glow In The Dark” (2016), “Darkness Rain”s (2018), and “Under the Spell of Joy” (2020) the band challenged the soul-crushing banality of modern society and celebrated “true magical infinite potential” through a collage of scorching proto-punk riffs, earworm melodies, far-out lyrics, and lysergic auxiliary instrumentation. But on their latest album “Islands in the Sky”, Death Valley Girls’ songwriting mastermind Bonnie Bloomgarden uses the band’s anthemic revelries as a guidebook to spiritual healing and a roadmap for future incarnations of the self. And while these may be the loftiest aims of Death Valley Girls to date, the resulting music is also by far their most infectious and celebratory.
Written & Performed by Death Valley Girls Bonnie Bloomgarden – Vocals – Guitar Larry Schemel – Guitar Rikki Styxx – Drums – Vocals Sammy Westervelt – Bass – Vocals Gregg Foreman – Synth – Wurlitzer – Hammond Organ Little Ghost – Backing Vocals Kelsey R – Backing Vocals Pickle – Backing Vocals Mark Rains – Percussion
“Islands in the Sky” out February 24th, 2023 on Suicide Squeeze Records.
The Fat Angel Sings 