San Diego’s Dirty Sweet belong to an emerging group of rock n’ roll revolutionaries, gentlemen prospectors clad in suspenders and dirty boots, returning home from the Gold Rush where they successfully panned along the banks of the country blues river for brilliant Southern rock nuggets. Along with contemporaries The Parlor Mob, Priestbird, The Main Street Gospel, Weird Owl, and (on a popular scale) Kings of Leon, they take the same trail blazed by The Rolling Stones, Cactus, The Allman Brothers, and The Black Crowes to usher in a new wave of forty-niner dust n’ soul known simply as mustache rock. American Spiritual, Dirty Sweet’s second album, is a slice of electric Americana with its fuzzy sights set squarely on the life and times of a country on the tipping point. They’ve even ratcheted up the tension this time around; where the songs on their first album, Of Monarchs and Beggars, were more homely and laid back, the songs on American Spiritual are more aggressive and boss, and come at you like an outlaw posse at high noon (dig “Get Up, Get Out,” “Please Beware,” “Kill or Be Killed,” and “Crimson Cavalry” for the loudest examples). However, this album isn’t without its laid back moments, and songs like “Star-Spangled Glamour,” “An Empty Road,” and “You Don’t Try” are prime examples of Dirty Sweet’s mastery of the front porch, sun-drenched ballad, while the title track is a Gothic gospel number that will haunt you just right. Smile a toothless grin, my friends, because mustache rock lives.
Check out the video for “Marionette” from American Spiritual!
Hell, why stop there? Check out the video for “You’ve Been Warned” from American Spiritual as well!
The smooth grooves, the electric cool, the easy beats, the hippie desert flow; it all comes pouring out of the eight songs on Gods & Goddesses like you would expect them to, all laid back and heavy, but goodness gracious, child, this isn’t your same ol’ Brant Bjork. Our main man, the undisputed leader of revolution rock, the ganja guru, is strolling above the clouds now, calling the shots from a beautiful oasis in the sky. The dusty green vibes usually found on his albums have been replaced here with a spatial island soul, and when the needle drops and opener “Dirty Bird” kicks in, you might fail to recognize Bjork’s signature dope tongue at first, but rest assured the bandanna essence is always there. It just sounds — if I dare say — more God-like. Of course, it might be that the new band of bros behind him (featuring bassist Billy Cordell of Yawning Man) have released a new coconuts n’ Cadillac attitude in him, but chances are Bjork just felt like expanding his mind one more time. After all, Bjork is a master at taking us to amazing, far away places with his blown brand of no fuss rock n’ roll. This record, while it might stray from the beaten path, is certainly no exception.
Ok, so I’m not sure this album is entirely new, but it’s new to me, and as you’re reading this the young Canucks in Black Wizard are putting the finishing touches on the vinyl version, so that’ll be new, got it? And by finishing touches I mean they are silk screening every single goddamn record jacket. That’s instant cred right there, and not just because I have a raging boner for all things rock n’ roll and all things silk screen, but because there’s no doubt that during this awesomely messy DIY process one of ‘em will get ripped to the tits on cheap beer, lose a finger tip in a freak silk screening accident, and bleed all over the freshly painted jackets. I would kill a child with a shoe to get my hands on one of those soiled copies, let me tell you.
Dirty Sweet
Brant Bjork
Black Wizard