Stream: Coma Girls, ‘Keep All of Your Happiness’

Kevin Bronson on August 4th, 2022

0

Atlanta native Chris Spino does battle with a three-headed monster — addiction, love and depression — on his new album as Coma Girls. And if merely illuminating those travails is a triumph (and it probably is), “No Umbrella for Star Flower” will warrant a celebration.

The album, out Sept. 2, is the follow-up to last year’s “Skyboxer” EP. It’s part shoegaze, part folk-rock and (almost) all Spino, vocally implacable, staring down demons and finding catharsis in the act.

“This record was my one escape, the one thing that kept me from going off the rails,” Spino says of the album, which, except for a handful of guests, is a two-man collaboration with producer Christian Paul Philippe. “It’s a pandemic record, a relapse record, a break-up record and a recovery record. This was the thing that was keeping me sane.

“I played about 95% of the record and Christian produced the whole thing,” he adds. “We were talking a lot about Sparklehorse and the dynamic between Mark Linkous and Danger Mouse, or Christopher Owens and Chet White from Girls, just that two-handed approach. I did all the songwriting, soundscapes, string arrangements, etc., myself, and then Christian helped me figure out the sound styles and we had a couple people pinch-hit for specific parts.”

The single “Keep All of Your Happiness,” released this week, is a slo-mo testimony packed with loaded verses. The previously released “Knife” is a swirling folk-shoegazer that lets reverb and distortion do the cutting. Each carries the sonic and emotional heft that figure to make “No Umbrella for Star Flower” a visceral experience.

||| Watch: The video for “Knife”