It’s not often that you come across a psychedelic record these days that feels like a personal mission statement, a singular artist’s defiant cry clanging in the hall of the establishment, a prophetic light in a world of darkness. Then again, you just don’t get albums that are quite like The Kundalini Genie’s You Are The Resurrection period.

The Kundalini Genie’s lineup had recently slimmed down to being only frontman Robbie Wilson, who wrote every song and played every instrument, making the sheer power and rich, full sound of the record all the more impressive. With You Are The Resurrection being essentially a passion project of one very determined musician, the entire album possesses a starkly personal vibe, while still retaining a full tilt, swaggering confidence.  One could easily imagine Wilson feeling as though this may be his last chance to record, so he absolutely gives every song, every lyric his best. He totally throws in everything he’s got and reaches full flight over and over again.

All across this LP, Wilson takes the listener through a deeply hallucinatory journey of his inner-psyche, exploring sonic impressions of frustrations that I imagine must have occurred across the recording of the group’s previous record, and his break away from his former members. Yet the utterly mind shattering psychedelia of the songs suggest that he has found his newly granted independence to be truly liberating, like he has broken the bonds of the Earth, and has truly begun to soar, like some sort of higher evolved life form (and does it ever sound fucking rad…)

There is simply not a single low point on this album. Just when you think things might calm down a bit, Wilson does a complete 180. For instance, when the reverb-heavy Black Angels-esque rocker, “Cap’n Bee Fart and His Lost Acidos,” feels like it’s reached its natural end point, the piece drifts off into a cosmic jam that sounds like Anton Newcombe dropping in with The Warlocks. Elsewhere on the record, sitars chime around a marching rhythm, snarling guitars and biting vocals on “You Are Not God’s Gift (You’re Just God),” before mellowing into an astral, meditative groove, while Spacemen 3-like drones and hypnotic drums drive the tense “Horse Tranquilizer” into a world of haze and uncertainty.

Perhaps the strongest moment on the record is “Bleach,” which is the album’s epic closing track. The acid-draped eight and a half minute song is saturated with bitter resentment and triumphant perseverance, culminating in what may be the single best song about cutting off toxic relationships in recent memory. The piece twists and undulates like a poisoned snake, with barbed guitar solos, piercing Iggy Pop-like vocals and a cold, mesmerizing beat. If any song could make you feel like you’re leaving your old life behind you in the rear view mirror while driving away free somewhere out in the desert, this is it.

Some artists need to be isolated. Some work best without direct collaboration. Some visions can only come to fruition on the solo path. The greatness that is You’re The Resurrection is absolute proof that sometimes, solitude is best. Go off the beaten path alone and give the album a try for yourself.

-KH