Ex-Wolfmother bandmates Chris Ross and Myles Heskett will bring their new project to life with ex-theredsunband singer/guitarist Sarah Kelly this week.
Their band – Good Heavens – releases its debut album Strange Dreams on Friday, which has been described as “a synthesis of ethereal dream-pop with the brute force of acid rock”.
The band met when Kelly had prepared a stack of solo material, and Heskett was suggested as a collaborator by her record label. When the duo clicked and began rehearsing Kelly’s songs – which had themes ranging from lucid dreaming to suicide – they realised that they needed a keyboardist and bass player, which made Ross an obvious choice.
Heskett and Ross said they were wary about committing themselves to a new band after walking out on Wolfmother in 2008.
“We were also afraid of wolfsmothering Sarah’s beautiful songs,” Heskett said. “Chris and I are a paintbrush that’s going to be a very specific colour if you choose to use it.”
Kelly adds: “We’re not another band who were friends in high school. This is a band that came together through the traditional A&R process from the 1950s and 60s, when a label would take on the role of finding suitable musicians for a project.”
Tracks on the psychadelica-fused record include the slow-motion ketamine dream of the title song, frenzied screamer Are You Sick and the album’s outro Know Your Own Heart Reprise, which was recorded in a tequila-fuelled session as a flash flood raged around the band’s studio.
Strange Dreams is out this Friday, August 17 through Rice Is Nice.
Good Heavens will be playing at the Lansdowne Hotel Friday, August 16th
