In Spirals Heads and Tails

A few weeks ago my Facebook feed became flooded with ads from bands offering free albums if I just paid for shipping.

I usually avoid ads like the plague. 

Actually now that I’ve endured a plague I don’t even avoid plagues like I do ads.

So I was completely shocked that the algorithm was actually working in my favor for a change.

Each ad plays a short clip of a music video and each clip was a banger.

So I bought a fist full of albums and figured I’d review them as they arrive.

First up is Basment Alchemy with their albums 

In Spirals Heads and Tails.

Having to wait a couple days for the albums to arrive gave me just enough time to forget what I had ordered.

I knew I picked albums from different music genres but had it in my head that Basement Alchemy was the pop group I had enjoyed.

I was completely fucking wrong.

Heads starts out with a jamming rock song The Optimistic Road that’s got a lovely string arrangement that gives it a cinematic feel playing behind a rocking riff that immediately had my foot tapping.

It was at this point I noticed Heads was released in 2014 with Tails being released in 2024.

As someone who takes an incredibly long time to get albums finished I wondered how long ago the Tails songs were actually written. 

Which if I’m ever given the opportunity to interview the artist It’ll be the first thing I ask.

After listening to Heads in it’s entirety I’ve found it hard to pick a favorite.

As I tend to gravitate towards vocals the most in music I found Dear In The Headlights to be haunting and beautiful. Between it and the following track Circles I’d say they’re my favorites by vocal performance alone.

Also I’m fairly certain the song Circles was the song that talked me into buying the albums.

Finally moving on to Tails I was immediately struck by the opening instrumental’s similarity to the Halloween Theme Song By John Carpenter.

It’s gradually increasing beat drove me to my feet to dance around the house while cleaning.

Which leads directly into a high energy rock song Super-Id which struck me as the perfect kind of rock song you’d find playing on the radio in a video game like Pacific Drive or GTA.

After listening to the album in full I can definitely hear the ways it continues the musical concepts forward from Heads but you can actually hear the decade worth of artistic growth in Tails.

With each song somehow feeling more fully realized than the tracks from Heads while also showing the artistic depth of choices the older tracks made.

Bringing a deeper appreciation of both.

Well at least to me.

At the end of the day I’d say Basement Alchemy has two amazing Indie Alt Rock albums that I’d highly recommend to fans of bands like A Perfect Circle or Revis.