aaamusic | On 06, Jun 2010

It has been 14 years since legendary Roky Erickson released an album, but finally we can get our hands on new material. True Love Cast Out All Evil spans through a life long career, with some of the tracks written while incarcerated in the Rusk State Hospital for the Criminally Insane, providing than even in the darkest moments true geniuses can still see beauty – even if dark – in the world around them.

Sheff – who produces the album – carefully twists the sound and adds original audio and sound from Erickson home, also offers outtakes from Elevators.

Dirty, rough, sharp as razors, the album showcases Erickson ability to comfortably dig into a variety of genres, such as garage-rock, heavy metal and folk, with a great number of gems, such as Goodbye Sweet Dreams and Please, Judge (80s rarities) which, despite being soaked in sadness, are so mesmerizingly true and with perfect lyrics that leave you speechless.  Instead, Bring Back The Past will remind you of the old days in 13^th Elevators Floor and his obsession for Buddy Holly. Another surprise are the arrangements: never out of place, they can stay in the background without pushing to get in to the spotlight, but when they do, as in Forever and Birds’d Crash, they are just theatrical, enormous, in a word, big.

What comes across in this album is the double personality of Erickson: the genius and the human being with all his tragedies. In showing the two sides of the coin, Sheff does a great job, enhancing the urge Erickson has to sing and perhaps exorcise his past.

Dark, witty, sharp, sad and optimistic at the same time, this is a must have album. Welcome back Roky.

Author: Alessia