The sky turns orange, and then the house goes with it. Bonnie Bloomgarden lost her Cali Altadena home to the Eaton Fire, and soon after, her dog Tommy. Most bands would have held a funeral. Death Valley Girls, the LA garage rockers, made an album.
Welcome To Earth opens with its title track like a hatch unsealing on a strange planet and ends with a song called “How Losing Everything In The Fire Taught Me To Love Myself.”
The singles show the weather range. “Message From the Venus Flower” is grief with a disco ball in the corner, a funky, ’80s-tinged love letter to a lost dog. “Basic Witch” is the opposite mood, muscular and impatient with the blame game.
The record is crowded with voices: guest singers, a children’s chorus, and jazz vocalist Gretchen Parlato. The new lineup of Chapman, Myers, Amram, Safaie and Foreman carries it.
Death Valley Girls have always sounded like a séance in a garage, but this time the spirits answered with Welcome to Earth.
