Death Valley Girls Unveil New Album “Islands In The Sky”

LA’s Death Valley Girls have released their latest full length, Islands In The Sky, via Suicide Squeeze Records. For the better part of a decade, LA’s scrappy rock n’ roll mystics have used their music as a means of tapping into a communal cosmic energy and challenged the soul-crushing banality of modern society through a collage of scorching proto-punk riffs, earworm melodies, far-out lyrics and lysergic auxiliary instrumentation. But on their latest album Death Valley Girls’ songwriting mastermind Bonnie Bloomgarden uses the band’s anthemic revelries as a guidebook to spiritual healing and a roadmap for future incarnations of the self. And while these may be the loftiest aims of the band to date, the resulting music is also by far their most infectious and celebratory.

The seeds for Islands In The Sky were planted while Bloomgarden was bed-ridden with a mysterious illness from November 2020 to March 2021. Before her illness, Bloomgarden’s primary focus was writing songs to help other people deal with their own suffering. But something in her shifted, and she began to turn her focus inward. If this sounds too cerebral or esoteric, don’t worry. At its core, Islands In The Sky is a party, a riotous, danceable, sing-a-long celebration of life, love, and mystery. The band have also embarked on a European tour this February and March which includes UK shows in London, Nottingham, Newcastle and Manchester.

The bulk of the album was channeled into being when Bloomgarden and drummer Rikki Styxx went out to a cabin in the California woods on New Years Day 2022 to hunker down and harness the songs from the ether. Further bolstered by Larry Schemel’s guitar prowess and the addition of new bassist and co-lead singer Sammy Westervelt, Death Valley Girls set out to make their most ambitious and exciting record to date at Station House Studio in Echo Park.

“When I was sick I started to wonder if it would be possible to write a record with messages of love to my future self. This was really the first time that I consciously thought about my own suffering and what future me might need to hear to heal. I struggled so much in my life with mental health, abuse, PTSD, and feeling like I didn’t belong anywhere. And I don’t want anyone—including my future self—to suffer ever again. I realized that if we are all part of one cosmic consciousness, as we [Death Valley Girls] believe, then Islands in the Sky could serve not only as a message of love and acceptance to myself, but also from every self to every self, because we are all one!”