Beachwood Sparks: Once We Were Trees : Music Reviews : Rolling Stone

Album Reviews

The pedal steel, layered harmonies and atmospheric keyboards of Beachwood Sparks' debut found a comfortable spot between the Beach Boys, Buffalo Springfield and the Flying Burrito Brothers at the record shop last year. On their new album, Once We Were Trees, the Los Angeles psychedelic alt-country band picks up where it left off. "Germination" begins in the middle of the same lovely desert mescaline trip, but then things get darker. "Confusion Is Nothing New" is a spooky ride through some Arizona canyon, and even the warmth found on the sincere cover of Sade's "By Your Side" feels lonely. But the more straight-ahead, Gram Parsons-influenced songs drip with mesquite richness and campfire earnestness. You could swear Stephen Stills makes a cameo on the extremely catchy "The Sun Surrounds Me"; the band captures a lowdown, sweet freedom on "Hearts Mend," on which singer Chris Gunst laments, "When will I feel free, certainly not in this crowded city." Beachwood Sparks do their Sixties So-Cal thing so well, you kind of wish they'd stick with it and leave the genre blending and apocalyptic disillusionment to Radiohead.

BEN BRASHARES
(RS 878 - September 27, 2001)