Green Blood

Sonny & The Sunsets Green Blood

(Polyvinyl)

San Francisco garage trio Sonny & The Sunsets have always been a frolicsome, trippy bunch whose records hold a reputation for being wry, weird excursions in bizarre pop. Their latest, Antenna To The Afterworld, isn’t any different – it was inspired after main songwriter Sonny Smith had a paranormal encounter with a deceased friend after visiting a psychic, which brought upon the idea of breathing new life into the “spaceling visiting Earth” concept straight out of 1972. The closing track, Green Blood, bounces a conversation back and forth in the form of question and answer over a sustained note, in which a space explorer with a Dylan drawl falls in love with a sad and lonely cyborg. In the tradition of spoken-word songs, the melody is like a blank canvas, almost incidental to the story  – it lingers around a tuneful, lo-fi sway that dips its toes with some of that cramped White Light/White Heat fuzz after the smog has cleared. But it’s all in the fine points that make this their best song yet – how the female insists, “no, you don’t” after he says, “now, I don’t have to tell you how great she was”, or how a choral of oooohs adorns their bittersweet separation with a cinematic flair. It’ll make you feel a little strange, not to mention surprised when you finally realize that a song so self-consciously kooky can actually make you feel so warm inside.