Review Summary: Where do you go when you close your eyes at night?
When I was a child, I would play a game: a game I’m sure we all played. You would hold your arms out, erect, with your head craned backwards – eyes gazing upwards through technicolor treetops. And you would spin. And spin. Until you’d collapse on the ground and stare up at the canopy above as the many fingered branches ebbed and flowed as though they were alien extensions of your own body. It wasn’t the spinning that made the game fun, or even the dizziness that followed; it was the beguiling out-of-body afterglow that washed over you on the forest floor that made the experience so enticing. The sensation that you were more than the confines of your own two arms, and that perhaps you and the forest around you could be one and the same.
That nameless experience of childhood wonder is what Leon III captures so effectively in their third album, ‘Something Is Trying To Change My Mind.’ Not due its storytelling or lyricism – both of which strike a balance between obliqueness and resonance – but due to the perspective it instills through its kaleidoscopic instrumental prowess and shimmering production. It is a perspective of expansive wonder and naked curiosity – one which minimizes man and maximizes nature:
“A fix of light? A bowl of stars? Evening light just sits here all day long…”
“Animals come out to watch us pass – it seems all things weren’t made for man…”
The most important point of note for returning fans is this album’s genre categorization: pure psychedelia. Although pieces of DNA remain, with their third album Leon III have almost entirely left the trappings of Country crooning behind, in favor of a more vivid, indulgent psychedelic sound. The challenge of balancing the Country’s highly structured nature with Psychedelia’s cerebral qualities has forced Leon III to get creative with their song structures in the past – most notably on ‘Antlers In Velvet.’ A challenge that is less pronounced on ‘Something Is Trying To Change My Mind.’ The result is an album that, while less ambitious compositionally, plays with a much more varied instrumental palate: serpentine sitars coiling around enchanting guitar melodies and gooey tabla percussion – all bathed in a veil of richly layered vocal harmonies.
The album is at its best when this instrumental palate manifests as maximalist bursts – as on highlights ‘Navigation Charts’ and ‘Dogwood Blooms.’ There are moments of magic to be found where you can almost see that autumnal glow poke through the dizzying canopy of branches overhead – all over again. It’s a gripping experience: awash in string laden color and layer upon layer of silken vocal croon. This greater instrumental variety and rich production lend the album a very robust sound, an effervescence which contrasts nicely with the tranquil vocal delivery and meditative lyricism:
“Its freezing cold, burning holes, in the status quo…”
“The devil I know is the brimstone of time ... something’s trying to change my mind…”
However – it is difficult to shake the feeling that something is missing. The lack of Country influence here robs Leon III of some of their grounded qualities that made their first two efforts so appealing. Although this album simmers beautifully, and often boils over in splashes of color, it doesn’t always GO anywhere interesting – and if you wind up there you may ask how you got there in the first place. There are psychedelic peaks here but they seem to burst forth unbidden rather than being tantalizingly teased and built up. Compositionally this album is neither as tight nor as sharp as the band’s preceding efforts – resulting in occasionally flat feeling melodic progressions and awkward left-hand crescendos.
It is said that the heart of any psychedelic experience is to witness the death of the ego: when one’s own self-awareness and identity dissipates into the aether of shared experience and enormity of the world we are a part of. “Grounded” isn’t the sound that Leon III is going for on ‘Something Is Trying To Change My Mind.’ They’re trying to change minds: people. For better or worse they are unshackled by the structure of their Country roots. As such, this album works harder than any of their prior material to crack open the head of the listener – and the aural ceiling of its genre – and really capture the celestial wonder and immense grandeur of the psychedelic experience.
The irony is that whether this album succeeds or fails depends on which experiential perspective you judge it from. To the structuralist pedant, the album is obviously gorgeous and obviously flawed: it lacks the teasing builds and patient atmosphere of its predecessor – resulting in bursting crescendos that feel unearned and abrupt. And yet, to the aural purist, there is a primal beauty to the record that captures the psychedelic experience in concept. No, the compositions are not technical marvels, but on a moment-to-moment level the album simply oozes with the sounds of splendor and bliss.
This is an important point to consider, the moment-to-moment beauty, as philosopher Alan Watts explained: “I have realized that the past and future are real illusions, that they exist in the present, which is what there is and all there is.” As much as one can scrutinize and dissect a work of art across a wider timetable or criteria: you cannot escape the fact that the heart of its value is in the moment-to-moment joy it inspires. And in no other genre is this more important than psychedelia – as this moment-to-moment joy is precisely what characterizes the psychedelic experience and death of the ego:
To breathe.
To let go.
To just be here now.
In that respect, ‘Something Is Trying To Change My Mind’ is masterful: its swelling guitars, surging strings, and dreamlike vocal harmonies are built to such a massive stature that it threatens to envelop the listener entirely. This album threatens the critic with their greatest adversary: missing the trees for the forest. One can dissect a record’s compositional merits all day – especially when going in with high expectations – and in the process lose hold of the precious moments of wonder a work of art can inspire. And if the psychedelic movement has taught anybody anything it is that one must appreciate the individual moments.
Because those are, after all, all we have and all we are.
