"A day before my trip through Arizona last Sunday, I downloaded 'Life & Death' by The Stevenson Ranch Davidians...and good thing I did. The album was my life-soundtrack for the past week. There were dark moments of deep reflection and hallucinatory-like moments of clarity as each track off of 'Life & Death' played in order on my car stereo. With the full moon overhead illuminating the vast and empty Arizona desert, I floated like an old hawk overseeing it's familiar sands with such a comfort that it's eyes close as it's memory guides it over the harsh and black landscape. Track one, 'Do You Feel Free?' sets the tone with a social-political like question in the lyrics, but with the melodic softness of a beautiful western ballad that doesn't preach to you, but let's you forget about the worries of outer forces and it leads straight in to the open-road anthem, 'Cosmic Blues'...which it truly is cosmic blues. At this point, I could feel my grip loosening at the wheel and my eyes sink. By the time 'Looking For A Line' travels through my ears and to the core of my mind, I imagine the ghosts of old rising from the side of the highway...that of the pioneers and natives with the story of hardships and pain in their eyes around the pale glow of their once lively bodies. As the first line of the lyrics sing out "you know i've been high, god knows I've been low" around the death-march, creeping rhythm, a brief sense of hopelessness sets in, but is quickly lost in the swirl of the melodies. A few aural stimulants later, enter ‘Feelin’ Good’. It has a lead melody that’s oh so familiar…in that classic blues stompin’ sense. This is the track that will leave you face down in the red sand, the pain of sunburn on the back of your neck as you wake to find buzzards above you, waiting for that opportunity where you transition from one of the sheep into an eternal watcher without the ability to interject your useless emotions into the ant colony of society. From all this confusion, slowly creeps in the wind-riding, galaxy-cruising guitar tone of ‘I Wanna See’…the peace you were looking for as the choir of voices spin slowly around your mind which has just touched the ground once again, making you question the experience. Was it all a dream…or the reality that you never knew.”

Written by Curt Barlage

 

Album Review: The Stevenson Ranch Davidians - "Life and Death"

by Brad Roberts  -  Radio Free Silverlake

I will state right up front that I'm a big fan of The Stevenson Ranch Davidians, ever since the first time I saw them at The Echo on July 3, 2008. Stopping me dead in my tracks, I was overwhelmed by the shimmering beauty of their music as it enveloped me. I believe I wrote at the time that they reminded me of The Brian Jonestown Massacre but without the tantrums and chair throwing.

They were opening for The Flying Tourbillon Orchestra at their EP release party for Escapements, and the other band was the phenomenal Fol Chen, so it was a pretty great night for music anyway. But The Stevensons... had me walking away, desperate to see them again.

I picked up their 2006 album, Psalms, Hymns and Spiritual Songs, was thrilled to hear how close it was to their live sound, and listened to it nonstop. Many bands recreate the surfy, jangly, psychedelia of the sixties, and many do it extremely well, but few match it up with such skillful song craft. The music has a natural progressive pull and the lyrics are direct, honest and unexpectedly profound. The sound is both retro and contemporary, and it's in a style I just never tire of.

I saw their electrifying live shows a few more times before the band went on a performing hiatus, just as my addiction was reaching full throttle. It was a difficult time and I had to wean myself off them. I almost succeeded. Then in early October, Jessica Latiolait, of the band, contacted me about getting a promotional copy of their new album, the self-released Life and Death, (in the interest of full disclosure) to review. This has no effect on the following opinion!

Over the years, the first album kept on revealing new facets and different songs would come to the forefront and command my attention. I think the new CD will play the same tricks, so I'll focus on a few cuts that immediately jumped out at me.

In the first ten seconds I knew that, despite three years between them, The Stevenson Ranch Davidians had recaptured the sound and atmosphere of that first record. There's a certain inevitability to Dwayne's writing which make the songs seem as if they've always been a part of your subconscious. Even on first hearing, they remind you of music locked deep within.

The opening song, "Do You Feel Free?", is deeply affecting to me because being free has always been a personal priority of mine, sometimes to the exclusion of the rest of humanity or to the detriment of relationships. In recent years, with the help of my passion for music, I've prodded myself out into the world, yet still wrestle to maintain a balance of freedom versus commitment, and I think this song illustrates it better than anything I've ever heard on the subject. Dwayne Seagrave's vocals are always evocative, but the slight edge of thinly veiled desperation in his voice on this number adds to its poignancy. The conclusion reached is that, for all our desire to be free, we are interconnected by our humanity and freedom is a balancing act.

Another stand out for me is "Time Is Going By", which is a beautiful song about facing the inevitable with a healthy dose of acceptance. Followed by the mournful "I Wanna See", which is a plea for consideration and a quest for understanding, whether from a partner or from society in general isn't made clear. There's an immediacy to the lyric content that seems, uncannily, like a conversation with a smart friend, yet distinguished by that haunting, echoey sound that makes that conversation like a memory. I'm sure other songs will emerge as favorites the more I listen, but this is my opinion at this juncture.

One of the wonders of The Stevenson Ranch Davidians is that with just Dwayne's guitar and vocals, Jessica's bass and the drums of Bryan Showalter, they can create such a full symphonic sweep, But it's the mature and sober writing of Dwayne Seagraves that lifts this band above the normal and feeds my brain and heart.

 

The Stevenson Ranch Davidians Psalms, Hymns, & Spiritual Songs

By Simon Minter / DISKANT

The Davidians were featured on the excellent Psychedelica Volume One compilation with the reverb-heavy, swooning 'Getting By'. This is included here on this twelve-track album, which follows similar stylistic themes to that track: blissed-out shoegazing guitar music with one foot in the dreamy Californian desert of the late '60s, the other in the introspective, effects-drenched world of Ride, Slowdive, Spiritualized, the Telescopes and so on.

As the album goes by, the mood rarely deviates from a sleepy-eyed, drowsy tempo. Vocals are delivered in a soft drawl that heavily recalls Richard Ashcroft when The Verve were at their best (circa A Northern Soul, as if you need to know), and the music is a fantastic blur of echoed, sweet guitar, with Hammond organ tones filling out the background. It's to the Davidians' credit that they don't let the soporific nature of this music dip into a dirge - it's carefully handled and contains enough melodic richness and drug-addled hypnotic grooviness to keep things fresh.

The music also steers clear of a kitsch '60s bubblegum trap by introducing dark elements that create a foreboding sense of night on tracks like 'Inbetween Everything' and 'Don't Get Hung Up', with brooding basslines and thick swells of sound that create a fog of sound that hovers in the room. Final track 'No Tomorrow' sees the album out with a pained and desperate sense of anguish - bluesy guitar lines developing into a mantra of noise that ends up exploding into itself.

The Stevenson Ranch Davidians

By Jonathan Green

In this ever-shrinking world, we tend to see blips in our expectations of what cultural products various geographical areas can produce. For example, you can find beautiful Scotch made in Asia and excellent Sushi in Halifax. In the Stevenson Ranch Davidians, I found some great British pop from sunny California.  The band has recently released a self-titled EP of lush, dark, dream pop that would not sound out of place on a mixed CD with The Doves and The Verve. I had to know more so I tracked down head Davidian, Dwayne (the bandmembers only seem to go by first names) to ask him to put my mind at ease about this cultural anomaly. 

The Stevenson Ranch Davidians head for the stars

By Paul Zimmerman, First Coast News

The Stevenson Ranch Davidians is a trip to outer space with stops at the moon and the afterlife. Songs lackadaisically swirl about and envelope your stereo as they lift you skywards into the heavens. “Subliminal Lover,” and “Better Day,” for example, are snoozy gloriously lazy tunes perfect for sunny afternoons. While “Nothing’s Cliché,” is also subdued it is far from being trite and sounds like Jason Pierce on a West Coast holiday; the song is a hit waiting to happen. On the other hand, “No Tomorrow,” is the best song the Dandy Warhols never wrote! It’s a cynical and sedate rocker that is the EP’s peak.

Whether in space or back on Terra Firma The Stevenson Ranch Davidians is a solid psychedelic trip that while passive is never lifeless. It’s an impressive debut that only hints at how much potential this band has. The hardest part for The Stevenson Ranch Davidians will be making music that some how stays rooted firmly on the ground while reaching for the stars. That shouldn’t be hard because they are one with the universe after all!

 

Review from Britain's Music Press
By Dr Nick

This record is absolutely stunning, The Stevenson Ranch Davidians make beautiful laid back trippy indie rock. They’re from Los Angeles but have a very English sound that is instantly likeable this band could very easily come out of Manchester which they actually list as one of their influences, at the same time they have a very distinctive sound that is their own. Opening track ‘Nothing’s Cliché’ is breathtakingly beautiful with the melodic guitars perfectly complimenting the vocals with the deep bass and slow drumbeat making this song absolutely perfect. As ‘Getting By’ starts though you begin to realize that this band really are something special and that all six tracks are going to be equally as good as the first. ‘No Tomorrow’ which sounds a like a slowed down chilled out version of The Music and ‘What Goes Around’ which reminds me a little of recent R.E.M (new adventures in hi-fi, reveal etc) are further highlights.

 

 

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The Stevenson Ranch Davidians  Space, Time, Nature, Animals, People, 12345 Senses Working Overtime, The Mind, Love, History, The Truth, True Freedom, Revolution(s), The Blues,Good Soulful Church Music, Good Soulful Soul Music, The Beat Generation, Rock and Roll, The British Invasion, London, Greenwich Village, Los Angeles and San Francisco in the 60's, Psychedelia, Manchester, Various Other Counter Culture/ Anti-Establishment Movements, The Great and Infinite Unknown.......Elvis Presley (The skinny one and the fat one), Lee Hazelwood, Bob Dylan, The Bee Gees, The Beatles (All five of them), The Rolling Stones, The Beau Brummels, Phil Spector, Donovan, The Byrds, The Monkees (and the Monkeys), Simon and Garfunky, The Velvet Underground,  Love, The Kinks, The Small Faces (Ogden's Nut Gone Flake!), The Troggs ("From Nowhere, The Troggs" is the shit), The Ventures ("The Ventures in Space" is also the shit), Cat Stevens,  Serge Gainsbourg ("Histoire de Melody Nelson" is the merde), Leonard Cohen, T Rex, U2, The Smiths, The Jesus and Mary Chain, Spacemen 3, Spiritualized, Spectrum, Mazzy Star, The Verve, James, Oasis, Radiohead, The Brian Jonestown Massacre, The Warlocks, Spindrift, The Black Angels, Devendra Banhart, The Comedown Band, The Parson Red Heads, The Fassbinders, The Rocking Horse People, LSD and the Search for God, No Little Kindness

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