The Sun Dogs

Rose Windows’ (flower) power lies in their live sets, which by most accounts have the same effect as squeezing Woodstock into a small club. The Seattle seven-piece’s (that’s right—seven-piece) debut The Sun Dogs is plenty hippie-dippy, but it also reaches for serious cosmic propulsion. A lot of that power comes from vocalist Rabia Qazi, whose voice falls somewhere between those of Grace Slick and Shocking Blue’s Mariska Veres. Qazi eases into it with folky opener “The Sun Dogs I: Spirit Modules,” which floats along before giving way to the epic “Native Dreams.” It’s that song that sets the tone of The Sun Dogs, a record whose explosive peaks and dark valleys give the feeling of actually being on a long, strange trip. In fact, if these songs had remained in their earlier folk versions, Rose Windows would likely dissipate with the rest of the neo-psych smoke. But jolts from songs like “Walkin’ With a Woman” and “This Shroud” make the gentler moments just as intense. The Sun Dogs is essentially a black-light poster come to life—which is to say there’s plenty here to feed your head.