Spotlights
Rarities
Ipecac
Spotlights are without a doubt one of the greatest bands no one has heard of apart from super cool people, they know about them. Now you can be super cool too and get a potted journey through the band’s evolution via this collection of rarities compiled from the very first recording all the way up to the recordings from the sessions of their last seminal album, 2023’s Alchemy For The Dead. San Diego’s Spotlights do a dreamy, fuzzy take on shoegazey noise rock that’s truly immersive and delightfully unruly. The core of the band is married couple Mario and Sarah Quintero and what beautiful music they make together, it’s clearly full of love and attention to detail. Cult Classic sounds particularly romantic albeit in an unconventional fuzzed out way. A Box Of Talking Heads marries old school lo-fi drum machine sounds to delicate reverberating guitars and trademark duet vocals to great effect. She Spider is a straight ahead garage rocker with the same floating vocal styles, that wouldn’t be out of place on a Dinosaur Jnr record. Unalive sounds like what would happen if Sonic Youth got remixed by 65 Days Of Static. Should Time Stand Still is a gorgeous mix of crackling orchestral instruments against melancholic guitars and sets the scene beautifully for huge closing track Kiss The Ring which is a full bodied stoner rocker to see out this immaculate collection. To say that this is a collection of rarities gives you some idea of how brilliant the tracks that make the cut on their albums are. Spotlights are amazing, get on this release and be the super cool person in your group.
https://www.facebook.com/spotlightsband
Review by George Miller