The title cut from Australian garage rock/psych rock outfit Datura4‘s latest LP, West Coast Highway Cosmic, is the dash-pounding, air keyboard, rocking freakout this generation has long needed but was too afraid to ask for. Built on sturdy rhythms, lysergic twists and turns, and a vocal hook that won’t soon leave you, this is the best of its kind since Deep Purple’s “Highway Star”.
Guitarist and vocalist Dom Mariani recalls writing the song. “I had the title kicking around for a while,” he recalls. “It comes from the iconic stretch of road that runs along our beaches here, west of Perth, Western Australia, and where one of our recording studios is located. I had the idea of tying two prominent guitar parts together. A combination of something along the lines of a Sergio Leone movie theme going into a racing and heavy twin guitar part that rocks out into the verse and chorus parts. It seemed perfect for what would be the title, concept, and opener for the album. Having a new keyboard player at our disposal, we added the spacey Moog parts to it to take it far and beyond.”
As for the video, which was produced and directed by Jon Tarry, Mariani adds, “The bulk of the footage used in the clip was shot remotely by Jon using various cameras and techniques. The band members in isolation supplied additional footage taken on mobile phones. Jon’s aim was not to try and tell the story of the track, however, to create a film in parallel envisioned as a precise moving painting that opened the doors to a temporal journey in time and space.”
Datura4‘s new studio album West Coast Highway Cosmic is out now on limited vinyl, CD and digital/streaming formats via Alive Naturalsound Records, including limited edition splatter vinyl.