AstroYeti: Disastro Spaghetti
Digital
Out Now via Conch Town Records
Key West, Florida psychedelic rockers AstroYeti have started to make a big impression with their unique blend of funk, rock, and blues. Spacey, psychedelic, humorous, and brilliantly fun, the new EP, Disastro Spaghetti, released via their local Florida label Conch Town Records, continues the trend with more vibrantly infectious tunes.
Opening with the squelching, phase-tinted guitar riff of Why The Rush, the band quickly sets an upbeat tone, characterised by its funk-blues playing style with a riff to die for. Introducing organ, drums accented with percussion, and grounding bass pull the track towards the elegant, understated yet infectiously catchy lead vocals which soon enter.
Breaking into an unexpected upbeat rhythm change in its chorus, the band displays a keen ability to keep their music interesting with a driving sense of purpose with defined, tight musicality to boot. Introducing a fittingly euphoric, bluesy guitar solo towards the end of the track, the EP’s opener is an explosive start, setting a vibrant exciting tone for the tracks to come.
Changing the pace with Opposites Subtract, the band puts on a southern rock with acoustic guitar likes, slide guitar, and swelling Hammond organs over a swaying beat. Adorned with some reflective lyricism and excellent harmonica, the track is a stark contrast from the EP’s opener.
Track 3, Puffing on A Pipedream, once again showcases another side to the band’s sound with a tight, almost Queens Of The Stone Age guitar riff before the band moves to a familiar, southern-alternative-rock flavoured chorus. In the latter part of the track, a striking synth solo breaks up the aesthetic with a stylistically quirky, psychedelic breakdown which grows to a climactic close.
Elsewhere, Chasm displays an almost surf-rock aesthetic before Lonely Ghost Regret sees the band return to their funk and soul roots with an added Latin flare. Layers of synth, brass, and buoyant rhythms grow through a heartfelt vocal delivery. Growing through a Santana-esque instrumental break, the track grooves into its final chorus closing out the EP in style.
A demonstration of the band’s stylistic width and ability to navigate modern, psychedelic flare and retro, 70s rock flare. Fun, deliberately wonky, and humorous, yet thoughtful and featuring some fantastically well-crafted, mature musicianship, Disastro Spaghetti balances the band’s wonky, tongue-in-cheek image with a serious sense of musicality.
To close the review, I’ll leave you with this otherworldly, slightly bonkers explanation of the EP from AstroYeti directly: “Part one of an epic crime-solving Space adventure, “Disastro Spaghetti” digs deeper into AstroYeti’s signature tropical space funk and delivers a powerful blow to evildoers through the galaxy and beyond. It’s got puppets… and spaceships. What more can you ask for?
We view this EP as a stand-alone adventure involving the puppet astronauts and their interstellar Van. Somewhere on one of the moons of Flurb in the Clabous Sector, the gang inadvertently trigger a cosmic reaction resulting in a monstrous spaghetti creature that terrorizes the quadrant. Each song touches on a different theme; fear, hate, freedom, love, loneliness, regret, and together paint the sonic backdrop for yet another amazing AstroYeti adventure!”
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All words by Simon Lucas-Hughes. More writing by Simon Lucas-Hughes can be found at his author’s archive.
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