In celebration of 20 years riding the bus to never-ever land, Howlin Rain delivers Watermelon, a glittering gift of deep-cut cover tunes drawn from a late-night FM transmission that never was, evoking an era when LPs, waterbeds, and bongs sat side-by-side in headshops strewn across the coasts and flyover states. Watermelon sums up band founder Ethan Miller's long, strange trip from the blown-out Blue Cheer nebula of Comets On Fire, to Howlin Rain's ongoing love letter to ’70's rock radio (and their stint with Rick Rubin's American imprint), then a stopover in the acid-folk lily fields of Heron Oblivion before launching into the ecstatic silver currents of interstellar space with The Odyssey Cult and Orcutt Shelley Miller.
With Watermelon, Miller has reinvigorated Howlin Rain's ever-changing roster once again, with only drummer Justin Smith from the last couple of lineups, adding Jonny Niemann (keys), Jason Soda (guitar and vocals), Kyre Wilcox (bass and vocals), and notable guests Chris Robinson (The Black Crowes), Ty Segall, and David Nance. The new band doesn't quite return to the manicured hedges of The Russian Wilds, despite its exploration of some of those AOR tropes, but casts the lessons Ethan learned in the major-label wilderness into a mirror of the band's more modest, stripped-down roots, refracted back through the tighter psych moves of its more recent Silver Current releases.
Featuring tracks by Mountain, Judee Sill, Sugluk, Moby Grape, Fairport Convention, Todd Rundgren, Scott Walker, Tim Hardin, and Mountain Bus (who supplies Rosali, the album's fitting closer, a great Dead-infused jam leading into the cosmic thicket). Silver Paper, the lead-off single, takes Mountain's earnest, ripped and ragged soul vocal (aptly supplied by the Black Crowes' Chris Robinson) and fretboard pyrotechnics into a (much) higher key. 30th Century Man injects the Scott Walker chestnut with exploding fuzz solos and lost, late-night vox (courtesy of Ty Segall, the perfect foil for Walker's velvet croon). Fall Away, a track from the seminal Native North Americacomp on Light in the Attic, swaps the inimitable First Nations backbeat with Crazy Horse chug and blasting fuzz.
For those who've lost Howlin Rain's trail over the years, or hopped off in the years following The Russian Wilds, this LP represents a hard reset, a stunning infusion of psychedelic vigor, a glorious reinvention of a band that's no stranger to new beginnings. Each track of Watermelon opens a new box of surprises, so in fear of killing them with words, I'll keep them undescribed -- all it takes to unlock them is a simple needle drop
