Düül Suns

With a slow build of singles over the past year, the debut from NY’s Düül Suns has finally taken its final shape. Tapped into a nocturnal brand of psychedelics, the group slips through oil slick reflections and neon flicker. Opener “Jealousy” was the first taste of the record and it remains a fitting introduction on their eponymous debut. With a roiling backbone, the song creeps through the underbrush before setting the speakers ablaze with a pyrotechnic punch in its back half. The band’s balance of tightly coiled calm and flamethrower guitars winds its way into more than a few cuts here, and the players’ acumen with radiation and restraint holds sway over listeners like mayflies in lamplight. They lure us in with comforts, cushions, and velveteen trappings, then let them crumble to creosote under the flame of James Ruffino’s string work.

The record reclines in the prog fog footlights, winking knowingly at prime-era Floyd on mid-album palette cleanser “Post Drugs,” but the shade of ‘70s stalactite psych is draped all over the record, dripping down the cavern walls with nods at Soft Machine, Caravan, Gong, and Göttsching. Propelled by the pulse of Adam Kriney (La Otracina), the band dips the guitars in obsidian glass, making more than enough room for the keys to get sticky, with a spectral organ sound that comes to a head on closer “Serpentine.” Poured amber vocals permeate the record, throwing prism hues around the room in dizzying shapes. The record comes on like quicksand, slow and all-encompassing. Once it’s taken hold, it’s best to just sit back and let the darkness descend.

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