Daiana Feuer on April 4th, 2017

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“The King Is Dead” is a vigorous tornado of a song that goes from steamrolling rock ’n’ roll to cosmic explosion with a dreamy acoustic finish, all under four minutes. And, to boot, it has medieval over- and undertones, which is icing on the psychedelic cake. It appears on “Crystal Magic,” the new album from Fuzzy Crystals, set for terrestrial landing on May 26.

The band recorded the album live to tape with Gus Seyffert (Beck, the Black Keys, James Supercave), using the producer’s 3M M79 16-track reel-to-reel over the course of three weeks. “The King Is Dead,” bassist Chris Hackman says, “was one of the most intense songs on the album to record.” The song, and album, features the extended Fuzzy Crystals family, which includes Christina Licciardi (on lead vocals here), Magdalene Herring singing and playing the mighty tambourine, Thomas Queyja and David James T. on electric guitars, bassist/singer Hackman, drummer Joel Saur and Alex Pfender on acoustic guitar.

Hackman explains, “The mixdown was insane. Gus flipped the master tape reel and printed a whole take of steel plate reverb from the vocals in reverse. That’s the ‘sucking, whooshing, vortex’ sound you hear on the vocals. We also tracked the first guitar solo ‘backwards’ with the tape running in reverse.

“Gus used two Echoplex tape-echo machines throughout the mix, that’s another huge part of the sound on the song. It was an all-hands-on-deck type deal; his assistant Sean Cook was doing live fader moves while he literally played the tape-head like an instrument during mixing. Each pass was totally different. You can hear it on the line ‘The Truth Will Never Die,’ and on the spaced-out whirling guitar solos, and on the acoustic guitar and vocals in the outro.”

While those details should titillate the music nerds among us, Hackman also offers some insight into the lyrics: “‘The King is Dead’ is about the breakdown of the mind’s authority, the moment when our darkest impulses pierce through into the light of consciousness. Personality crumbles, and the seeds of madness take root in the fertile ashes of the soul. However terrifying, this moment inevitably culminates in a renewal, a rebirth, a deep rekindling of the creative force inside the human heart.

“Or maybe it’s about David Bowie.”

||| Stream: “The King Is Dead”

||| Live: The Fuzzy Crystals perform May 6 at Angel City Brewery and have an album release party at Three Clubs on May 20.