First off, this 2xLP set has THEE best cover I’ve laid my sockets on in many moons. It is soooo eye-burningly great that I’m tempted to run out and buy a van just to have the image painted on it. It’s about time the art world came around to the lucrative “ray-gun touting topless women riding giant tarantulas through darkened valleys” market. Bra-fuckin’-vo! But I’m not getting off my high horse just yet. I must say that this latest from NorCal’s finest, Starving Weirdos is one of their most swell/swollen yet to date. Four flippin’ sides of confuse-adelia for both the farm-fresh kid to the well-heeled cad. Way noisier than the releases on Root Strata, Path of Lighting is chock full of mystery moves and dynamo hums, from the tripped-out textural flips on “Into the Flatlands” flickering in and out of foci to the almost-an-environmental-statement of “N.Y. Blues” with talk show jibber jabbing into the corrosive static as the grooves run out. The two dudes in Starving Weirdos are joined by yet another dude for two tracks and it’s tough to know exactly what he’s adding (besides another layer of ecstasy gush) but they’re my fave sides. For sure. These two sides sound like the fine line that separates No Neck Blues Band from Sunburned Hand of the Man. The final track could/should have been in the movie Rosemary’s Baby, right around the time Mia Farrow is screaming “What have you done to his eyes!” As the kids these days say, “Fuck you, dad!” — no wait, “Dude, that would rule!” Yeah, that’s it. So, let recap — you get the deluxe gatefold jacket courtesy of the always peachy Weird Forest label, twin slabs of head-spinning secret laboratory recordings and man — that cover is making me so hot!