Long Haired Locusts

Spit and jitter in a revelatory stance. Profundicate your masticators and whisper "so longs" into the deepest dearths. Out of the spout, out of the flash, out of the gnash and fleeting cry comes Godcaster with Long Haired Locusts.  The venerated and shining troupe of David McFaul (keys, vox), Von Lee (flute, vox), Lindsay Dobbs (trombone, vox), Bruce Ebersole (bass guitar), Sam Pickard (drums), and Judson Kolk (vox, guitar) transmit a brand of devout, intense rock and pop that thrashes through stages of blissful, comforting highs and devastating lows, preaching the convergence of the holy and the heretical. This is best displayed on songs like “Apparation of The Virgin Mary in My Neighborhood,” where the anxious exertion of sharp, frenetic guitars and throbbing, cutting drums follow the increasingly quickening pace of Kolk’s narrative of trepidation before the tension grows too tight and snaps into violent, cathartic outbursts. Similar nerves are addressed and released throughout Long Haired Locusts—the navigation of celestial beauty and corporeal rot is omnipresent and important. “Serpentine Carcus Crux Birth” and “Christ in Capsule Form” are both bouncing and vibrant, while “Blister Intercom” is lush with rejoicing choruses that accompany the marching guitars and drums, and songs like “All the Feral Girls in the Universe” naturally builds upon an undeniably danceable composition until it reaches, like the album as a whole reaches, a phenomenally euphoric peak.  Long Haired Locusts, recorded live to tape by pop-mysticist Ryan Power in a Philadelphia basement, is a no-frills showcase of Godcaster’s essence and best consumed at high volume with as few breakable objects as possible within a flailing extremities reach. And as well as Long Haired Locusts captures the exultant frenzy of Godcaster, it is best to see for yourself the type of magic that bubbles even further beneath the surface that no physical recording could possibly capture. The visceral intensity of any of Godcaster’s public ceremonies of performance, small or large, further highlights the immediacy and impact of their guttural, primal expression and unveils more of their enigmatic presence. The thunderous crash of symbols, the slicing guitars, the driving bass, and the angelic cacophony of keys, flute, and voice—especially that of Von Lee, whose crystalline falsetto has a particularly paralyzing magnificence live—leave very few non-believers in their wake.  Godcaster creates their own kind of protean piety based on the exaltation of movement and sound and Long Haired Locusts is the first of their sacred texts. It is a statement of purpose and acknowledgment of future growth beyond the limits of these sounds or any others. Whether you praise be or shutter in fear, we must all bear witness to the mythic rise of the music and the movement that is Godcaster.

After years on the DIY circuit, the Philly group condenses its freaky energy into 14 art-punk vignettes about Stevie Wonder, satanic snakes, a hallucinatory Virgin Mary.

A strange thing happens when you take Long Haired Locusts out for a walk.