Reverie Suite 2025
Back in the saddle for a third ride, Californian ensemble bring another round of tuneful bullets to a set of dusky mysteries.
Smoking Gun
This is how DELANEY & BONNIE would have sounded had they arrived today – yet EUPHORIA STATION are much more than that, because their view of Americana seems much more adventurous: after all, Southern rock and prog don’t make natural bedfellows. Still, singer Saskia Kraft van Ermel and guitarist Hoyt Binder blended the two styles almost seamlessly at the very start of their journey, which is resumed with “Smoking Gun” after a six-year gap to show the Los Angelenos’ even firmer grasp on both idioms. With a new line-up featuring a stellar rhythm section, drummer Toss Panos and ex-GOV’T MULE bassist Jorgen Carlsson, and fresh repertoire including THE MARSHALL TUCKER BAND cover, such mixture of genres became nigh on perfect. Of course, the album’s hour-long span could feel a bit overwhelming, but the strength of the dozen original should make it a rodeo worth embarking on.
Tuning into a loose concept via the short, slider-oiled intro of “Amazing Grace (In Memory Of…)” before placing the flute-stricken classic “Take The Highway” into their own context to tighten the platter’s narrative, the collective offer a mighty salvo of sultry vocal delivery and scorching six-string assault. So when the titular cut floats to the fore on a sweet wave of muscular twang and delicate strum, the scene for this insistent, sweat-drenched homespun mini-epic has already been set and dusted with Hammond passages, and will be well-trodden by the time the lighthearted, if cosmically expansive, instrumental “Dusty Roads” prepares the listener for the final turn that “November Came Early” serves up warmly and vigorously in an Indian summer’s cobwebs-in-the-wind kind of way.
As “Nowhere Junction” and “My Mistake” weave bluesy harmonica between the rest of parts to produce countrified jive, there’s a nice contrast between traditional fare most of the tracks display and the slightly alternative edge the funky “Off The Beaten Path” and riff-driven “Here With You” get high on. But while “The Ballad Of Grace Malloy” needs no voice at all to fly, “Sweep Me Away” requires honeyed tones in all the departments to go for a hoedown swirl topped with a honky-tonk piano solo, and “Carolina On My Mind” demands the same in order to explore prairie-like tranquility. Perhaps, the nervous “Living For Today” strives too hard to sculpt an anthemic sway, yet ultimately, that’s where all the strands of the band’s creative method come together. A delightful album through and through.
*****
