Saturn Return
SBR 043
songs- Dixie Cups and Valentines, Iner Space Trajity, Long Days Journey into Tonight, Daughter of the Twilight, Silent Hearts Decline Your Invitation, Well of Souls, You Bury Me, Glow Like Starshine, Saturn Return, The Fool, All I Have Left of You, Nocturnum, Hideaway
SlowBurn Records is proud to announce the release of Sun Zoom Spark’s 5th official release, Saturn Return. Recorded at the band’s studio January through June 2004 in Tucson Arizona, Sun Zoom Spark returns with a diverse and addictive collection of material. Almost 70 minutes of music, Saturn Return highlights a new line-up for the group featuring Black Sun Ensemble’s Brian Maloney on bass and saxophone, Tucson’s Greyhound Soul organist Bobby Hepworth on Rhodes, Hammond and Melodian and J Ratcliff on drums. Singer/songwriter and guitarist Eric Johnson, who founded Sun Zoom Spark in 1995, creates a timeless collection of songs that are steeped in power-blues, pop and fully realized psych-rock.
According to Johnson, “Saturn Return is a cycle of songs about love and loss. It is about how relationships are created, fall apart and what you are left with after it is over. Although, don't get me wrong, its not a sappy testimonal -actually its probably more about the jams than anything!"
Saturn Return showcases SZS’s lighter side with the power-pop opener, Dixie Cups and Valentines, Iner Space Trajity and the album’s title track while not ignoring the band’s signature garage-rock meltdown on You Bury Me and Silent Hearts Decline Your Invitation. Saturn Return features several instrumentals like the gypsy-blues, Well of Souls and the prog-rock explosion of Long Days Journey Into Tonight, while also allowing the band to breath on more reflective material like the bitter-sweet All I Have Left of You and Glow Like Starshine. Sun Zoom Spark offers a set of curious covers; Camper Van Beethoven’s The Fool and Freddy King’s blues standard Hideaway as if a testimonial to the group’s influences. Perhaps the collection’s spiritual centerpiece is Nocturnum, a hypnotic blend of ambience and hard rock that rockets the listener into deep space and destinations unknown.
Saturn Return CD
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power-poppy 'Dixie Cups and Valentines', and, good as
it is, it seems more lightweight than expected. Three
songs in things take a psych/prog sidestep, and continue to get heavier until 'Well of Souls' comes along with its slow, 'electric Django' blues. There's an unexpected cover of Camper Van Beethoven's 'The Fool', too, which sounds great, but the highlight here is definitely the thirteen and a half minute 'Nocturnum' which features some ace brain shredding guitar and bubbling keyboards.
Recommended! -The Ptolemaic Terrascope, 1/06