Search Party
Montgomery Chapel
The first authorized reissue of this psychedelic masterpiece comes on 180-gram vinyl, in an old-style tip-on jacket. Included is an insert offering info and band history by band leader Nick Freund, plus photos from his personal archive. The Search Party was the brainchild of (then Reverend) Nicholas Freund. Having left Wisconsin to join a burgeoning West Coast religious scene, Freund made his way to San Francisco in 1968 to lay down this sole effort with some of his students. The result is a spooky trip that's equal parts acid-soaked mind expansion and God. Laced with haunting vocals and dreamlike passages, sinister farfisa, blasts of fuzz guitar and downer lyrics, 'Montgomery Chapel' represents psychedelic music at its most evocative and, thanks to its depth and sense of anxiety, most spiritual. The ominous nine-minute drifter 'So Many Things Have Got Me Down', for example, tackles the difficulties of an unfulfilled married life, depression and spiritual apathy, all while riding a stripped down, grooving beat. If you can imagine a lo-fi United States Of America/Jefferson Airplane hybrid, you have an idea of how cool this band sounds. Originally only 600 copies were pressed and issued on the Century custom label. These copies have become holy grails for psych collectors. Artists as disparate as Current 93's David Tibet and Sonic Boom have heaped praise on it. The Search Party definitely was one of the most unlikely-psychedelic groups to ever record an album.