Hot on the heels of their critically acclaimed third album, Blessed is the Boogie, Australian rockers Datura4 have hit the motorway running for another sonic journey through burning boogie, dirty blues and rock and roll soundscapes on their follow-up opus West Coast Highway Cosmic. The title was inspired by the highways that the band has traveled to get to the recording studios they’ve been using over the four albums they’ve done so far.
The two studios are 200 kilometres (124 miles) apart and situated along the southwest coast of Western Australia. The long and sometimes lonely drives back and forth along these routes have definitely played its part in the band’s creative process, and whether it be new ideas or just listening back to what they’ve done in a previous session the ‘West Coast Highway Cosmic,’ as they like to call it, has been a constant spirit over all of Datura4’s studio recordings.
West Coast Highway Cosmic sees Datura4 stretch out and experiment with their sound that they’ve been building on ever since their debut release Demon Blues in 2015. “I see every album as an extension from the previous one,” admits frontman Dom Mariani, “and I’m conscious about not rehashing the same things over. The collection of tunes on WCHC is slightly more eclectic than on the previous albums, which makes it really interesting and exciting for albums in the future. There was a more spontaneous and looser approach for the majority of the recording, where we would take the basic song idea and let things go until we had the take that we liked. We got into the grooves you might say.”
“Bob Patient, who joined the group toward the end of the Blessed is the Boogie recording, was involved from day one on the new album and his keyboards play a bigger part and have added an additional flavour to the D4 sound,” Mariani adds. “I wouldn’t say it’s a different direction, but more about exploring additional possibilities as musicians.”
Datura4’s new studio album West Coast Highway Cosmic will be released April 17th on vinyl, CD and digital/streaming formats via Alive Naturalsound Records. Click here to pre-order the limited edition ’70s Psych Splatter Vinyl of Datura4’s West Coast Highway Cosmic.
Today, Ghettoblaster has the pleasure of premiering “Rule My World,” a blues-based pavement-shredder that flexes significant muscle while nodding to forefathers like ZZ Top and John Lee Hooker and even Stevie Wonder.
Mariani had this to say about it:
“In the late ’70s, just before punk exploded, blues bands ruled the Perth pub rock scene which went against the mainstream charts which were dominated by disco and west coast rock.
“In the middle of town stood the iconic 78 Records, who had an unassuming shop front window with a huge black and white image of Blind Lemon Jefferson. The Beatles and Creedence Clearwater Revival were my go-to bands growing up and as a young aspiring guitar player I was leaning more toward the heavier side of rock and blues; Cream, Hendrix, Johnny Winter, and Led Zeppelin. 78 Records specialized in classic blues imports and this enabled me to dig deeper and find my way to Muddy Waters, Jimmy Reed, John Lee Hooker and so on.
“I’ve always believed that the blues was a basis for good rock and roll. ‘Rule My World’ is the band belting it out live to tape with a back to basics swagger n’ roll, pushing hard on the fuzz box toward the heavier side of the blues.”
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