It’s Halloween all year round in many of Roky Erickson’s songs, which stew imagery ripped straight from the pages of EC Comics (“Two Headed Dog,” “I Walked with a Zombie,” “Stand for the Fire Demon”) in a viscous tub of diesel-fueled psychedelic blues. That wasn’t the side of Erickson on display on last year’s widely acclaimed Okkervil River collaboration True Love Cast Out All Evil (Anti-), though. Although “John Lawman” rips and snorts pretty hard, elsewhere Erickson is subdued and serene as he looks back over his incredibly turbulent life in songs such as “Ain’t Blues Too Sad,” “Goodbye Sweet Dreams” and “God Is Everywhere” (produced and arranged by Okkervil front man Will Scheff). Although he finally seems to have tamed his inner demons, there’s no reason not to expect Erickson to let them out for a little autumnal frolicking in his third Continental visit in as many years.
This article appears in Sep 29 – Oct 5, 2011.
