Blanche Davidian

The psychedelic effects shine through sonically on Blanche Davidian’s second album. Songs like “Queef Action” and “Rottweilers Keep Following Me” brim with fuzz and roar with reverb behind singer Jamie Monistat VII’s spacey, snarky vocals, and the title track is a 61/2-minute raging jam. There’s even the occasional hippie vocal harmony, but Blanche Davidian are way more Dead Boys than Grateful Dead. They play fast and hard on all of these tracks, except for a beautiful acoustic breakdown and crisp, melodic guitar solo in the middle of “Hale-Bopp Panty Raid.” Orange Sunshine lacks the experimental liberties of the band’s first album, opting instead for lean, mean rock riffs and bigger production. Lyrically, Blanche Davidian’s still a culturefuck of madcap musings, like this one from “Blanched Magic”: “Semolina pilchers/Dry dive off the Eiffel Tower of Babel/and up into the river Styx/and cleansed by Muddy Waters.”