Allah-Las

Are you tired of that same old song? Tune into any alt-rock robo-jock frequency on the FM dialand you’ll know what I mean. Somewhere along the way, nostalgia curdled, and it feels likewe’re doomed to hear the same boring souls for eternity. But don’t ask California sonsAllah-Las—they wouldn’t know a thing about it. “The Stuff,” which opens the band’s fifth LP,Zuma 85, lays it out:“I don’t listen to the radio/They keep playing that song again/And the deejay’s a computer.”As the glammy, electronic strut of the song indicates, Zuma 85 signals the start of a new era forAllah-Las, and finds the band reinventing itself in defiance of the algorithmic categorization androbotic sterility. Recorded in the midst of the shift from the Old World to whatever branch ofreality we’re on now, it’s a return, too: The album will be released via their own label, CalicoDiscos, in partnership with Innovative Leisure, which released early defining statements likeAllah-Las (2012) and Worship The Sun (2014).For the last 15 years, Allah-Las have alchemically melded surf rock washes with folk rock jangleand rock, building up their lauded music podcast, Reverberation Radio, and record label, CalicoDiscos, in the process. But a lot has changed since Matthew Correia (drums/vocals), SpencerDunham (bass, guitar, vocals), Miles Michaud (guitar, organ, vocals), and Pedrum Siadatian(guitar, synth, vocals) first bonded over psych rock vinyl in the back room at Amoeba Records inthe late aughts. Zuma 85 finds the quartet facing a new world with a wealth of new sounds,drawing from an eclectic mix of progressive rock, prog, kosmische, and Eno-esque art rock,scuzzy Royal Trux riffs, and detouring into tones and textures that call to mind ‘90s and 2000spop.The album was born, like so much else these days, out of the downtime of 2020-2022. For mostof the band’s existence, Allah-Las adhered to a year to album year/tour year schedule, loggingserious hours on the road. When the shutdown of 2020 put everything on hold, it opened upspace for each member to focus on their own lives and interests, and time to re-envision whatcreative processes could look like.When it came time to reconvene, that sense of looseness proved pivotal. Instead of bringingfinished songs to the studio, they entered the picturesque Panoramic House recording inStinson Beach (a space co-owned by John Baccigaluppi of Tape Op magazine) with sketches,ideas, and riffs. Working with co-producer Jeremy Harris (White Fence, Devendra Banhart, SamGendel) they shaped and crafted the new songs in real time over three sessions, which werethen mixed in Los Angeles by frequent collaborator Jarvis Taveniere (Woods, Avalanches,Purple Mountains).It was clear from the get go the bucolic environment—observed through picture windowsoverlooking Stinson Beach and Bolinas Bay—would be conducive to creating the first statementfrom Allah-Las 2.0. “We got in real late that first night of the first session,” Michaud says. “It wasaround midnight. We had a quick intro and Jeremy had a bottle of wine. We had a little and hesaid, ‘You wanna start recording?’”They did. And when the group reassembled the following morning to listen back, they found thesparkling and stutter--stepped “Right On Time” mostly done. It was unlike anything the band hadever recorded but felt entirely natural. “Everything just worked,” Michaud says. “That studio justpulls it out of you.”Despite the habitat where Zuma 85 was crafted, these songs represent the Allah-Las departingfamiliar beachy territory for off the map expanses, embracing the influence of late-era Lou Reedand John Cale, the ‘70s mutant pop of Peter Ivers and early Eno and Roxy Music, and texturesborrowed from Japanese pop and loner-folk obscurities, There are kosmische zones, like thePopol Vuh-evoking “Hadal Zone,” anthemic and electronic boogies like “The Stuff” and “SkyClub,” and arch prog on tunes like “GB BB” and “Smog Cutter.” On the instrumental title track,“Zuma 85,” field recordings and chimes precede Manuel Göttsching (Ash Ra)-style guitars,which drift aquatically over a motorik rhythm and hazy synths.Sharing a name with that song is a photo of an abandoned house by California photographerJohn Divola. Selected by Correia, the band’s resident photography head and album artdesigner, it juxtaposes a visage of man-made chaos against the natural beauty of the WestCoast. It served as an unspoken reference point for the album, a symbolic totem indicative of anew era. A decade and a half into their run as Allah-Las, Correia, Dunham, Michaud, and Siadatian continue on an evolutionary path. Are you tired of the same old songs? So are they.So blow it up and let it rip.