Blitzen Trapper sail into the mystic on their tenth studio effort, the existentialist audio road trip Holy Smokes Future Jokes. Using the Bardo Thodol (The Tibetan Book of the Dead) as his guide, frontman Eric Earley attempts to parse "what it means to escape the cycle of birth and rebirth" with a versatile ten-song set that's built on a chassis of billowy psych rock, widescreen Americana, and chamber pop. Blitzen Trapper have been exploring the spirit realm in one form or another for well over a decade now, so the narrative throughline of Holy Smokes Future Jokes lines up canonically, as does the group's willingness to elasticize their already rubbery brand of indie Americana. Commencing with the spectral "Baptismal," things get elusive fast, with Earley ticking off a laundry list of disjointed memories over an elliptical verse melody that yields a sumptuous, Fleet Foxes-worthy chorus. The lilting "Bardo's Light (Ouija, Ouija)" and "Magical Thinking" follow suit, echoing the interior vastness of 2010's Destroyer of the Void, while the bracing "Masonic Temple Microdose #1" doubles back around with a tip of the cap to the band's lo-fi garage rock beginnings. Elsewhere, the Tropicalia-laced title cut evokes the sardonic folk-pop of Father John Misty, with the lurching "Dead Billie Jean" imagining Michael Jackson's now-deceased antagonist sharing spliffs with Brian Jones, Jim Morrison, and Abraham Lincoln while "slidin' through the aether in a dream." Despite its overtly metaphysical esthetic, Holy Smokes Future Jokes goes down fairly easy, as the band conjure up melodies that swaddle Earley's heady yet homespun lyrics in the golden hues of breezy west coast pop and country-folk.
© James Christopher Monger /TiVo