Spirit Caravan

Jug Fulla Sun (Tolotta)
by Craig Regala

What’s to say? The band is led by a guy who was in the Obsessed and St. Vitus. He’s been working his rock muse since he could get his hands on both a guitar and other people to form a band. The sound is a fully rounded slice of drone biker/doom that owes less to anything specific than the general man vs. nature rock as rock push. You can reference Sabbath, but this is more organic. It’s grounded in street logic and driving acidic guitar sparking rather than heroics or four-part tunes (look, Sabbath is prolly my favorite band next to the JHE, but Spirit Caravan is a gnomeless trip and better for it). There is a real world blues to Jug Fulla Sun that points toward Randy Holden and the first couple Blue Cheer recs., as well as early Robin Trower/High Tide/Groundhogs blues-based rock as antecedents as much as any famed metallurgists. So what, right? Does it rock? Does he get to you? Are the tunes there? Is he still in voice, soul intact? Yes across the board. But without Gary Isom’s spot-on roughly-held and perfect mix of tension release/rockin’ time-keepin’ drumming and Dave Shermans’ throbbing bass backbone, it wouldn’t be a band or have the correct sonic burn. These guys never overplay and always have enough there to keep it from being skeletal. A goddamn wonder it is. As long held and valuable a commodity as Motörhead, for what it is. Timeless as a marble tombstone.
(PO Box 4412 Arlington, VA 22204)