Devendra Banhart

Devendra Banhart's follow-up to Cripple Crow sounds nothing like it. Recorded in Topanga Canyon, it also sounds nothing like '70s California canyon rock (CSN&Y, Joni Mitchell, John Phillips, etc.). It does sound like the dude is trying to ditch the "freak folk" tag with some subtly psychedelic rock 'n' roll songs and Spanish-sung, tropicalia-tinged acoustic pop. While making this album, he somehow acquired Jim Morrison's sofa and got Val Kilmer to pay for his dinner at a Malibu restaurant, so maybe that's why he's inflecting a bit like the saucy Lizard King on epics like "Seahorse."

Devendra Banhart is a master of the idiotically cosmic. On Smokey Rolls Down Thunder
Canyon, his fifth album, he holes up in Topanga Canyon to make an old-fashioned
psychedelic folk opus, breathing in the California spirits and listening to his beard for
inspiration. He runs through terrible ideas and twists them into good songs, even the one
that goes "In 1902/The devil sucked off the moon." You could complain that this g... More >