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Beachwood Sparks are back with ‘Across the River of Stars’

beachwood sparks

This past July, L.A. band Beachwood Sparks released their first album in 12 years, Across the River of Stars. Sometimes, when a band makes a comeback after such a long hiatus, the music can be hit or miss. Do they still have ‘it’? Is this just a money grab? Thankfully, in this case you don’t need to worry about those issues.

Across the River of Stars has the psychedelic country vibes longtime fans of Beachwood Sparks know and love. They did a great job of channeling their classic sound, but still making it fresh with new influences.

'Across the River of Stars' album cover beachwood sparks

“It’s almost like if you had a time machine, instead of going forward in time, we just pause the band, and ourselves,” guitarist “Farmer” Dave Scher told Rock and Roll Globe. “It was almost like a plant coming back up. It felt like organically, the kind of music we’re about, in addition to a lot of things, of course. We were getting influences from nature a lot, which you could hear in our songs. We were starting to get very influenced by books like Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee and Black Elk Speaks, and we’ve been learning about the First Nations people and indigenous ideas. We got really into the earth and nature.”

The members of Beachwood Sparks are always seeking intellectual stimulation. They’re of course brilliant musicians, but they’ve also ventured into other fields. When you listen to their music, it does come across that these guys have so many interests that influence their work.

“Chris had developed a practice as a therapist back in the mid 2000s, and I’ve just followed him almost 20 years later and got an associate degree in clinical psychology,” Scher said. “Chris is a clinical psychologist and therapist and sound healer. Chris sings about that a lot. Whether you want to say the band has a leader or not, I think he’s our touchstone because of how tuned in he is to the feelings and this kind of approach. We’d even gotten together in 2019, or maybe it was even early 2020, so it wouldn’t have been 12 years. But the pandemic flattened that. Also, while we were rehearsing for this album, I was sometimes in another building, attending remote classes while they rehearsed, and then showing up when I was out of school. But now it seems like it could be a good time to poke our head up again and see how is it now. This is a particularly interesting time to resurface as a member of the band and I think we all appreciated that fact.”

The band has always had a unique sound. You could describe it as “alternative country,” but there are a lot of psychedelic//70s rock vibes, too, with some indie-pop mixed into as well. The way the trio blends their voices together in this album helps create a wonderful atmosphere. They’ve worked with some amazing musicians on their journey like Neal Casal, Cass McCombs, and most recently Chris Robinson of the Black Crowes, who produced the new album.

“Chris really made the album happen,” cofounder Brent Rademaker told Heads Lifestyle. “We had music parts and lyrics, but they weren’t fully realized songs. Usually, Beachwood writes as the tape’s rolling, but Chris had us do a little pre-production. We took one day in the studio to go through each song—he’d suggest things like, ‘Kick that part out’ or ‘Do that part twice.’ For ‘Torn in Two,’ we worked on it for a whole day but couldn’t find the right arrangement. Chris came up with one in 10 minutes. We gave ourselves over to the process of being produced.”

2024 was a great year for music, lots of new and interesting bands, but also bands who have been around for years coming back from a long hiatus – including the Cure, Judas Priest, the Jesus and Mary Chain, and Beachwood Sparks. All put out new albums in 2024 that are well worth a listen.

If you’re looking for an Americana album that will also send you on a psychedelic trip to Mars, check out Across the River of Stars.


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