Danava’s guitar-heavy psych epics manage to look toward the past and future simultaneously. Photos by . Text by .
Four years ago took the stage at the squished between the Chromatics and unbilled and unknown. At the time Dusty Sparkles was doing double duty as the drummer for Glass Candy and unleashing the guitar and vocals on Danava’s tour.
Standing in front of the stage (with a handful of people) I felt variations of confusion and awe. Confusion arose when I began wondering if Glass Candy had changed their sound again, and awe arose at the swarm of otherworldly epic jams that were being rained upon my virgin ears. 2004 wasn’t really a faddish time for 10-minute long swirling psych metal guitar jams, but by now tides have changed, moons have waxed and waned and the momentum following Danava’s most recent release, “UnonoU,” is in full crest.
Not that fads matter to Danava, but the wave has caught, words have spread, blogs have been posted and two songs in at the Larimer Lounge on Wednesday, Danava had a throbbing crowd of black shirts with a few flannel and a tie dye thrown in. The new longhairs mixed with the now-shaved headbangers. The curious and jealous (of the mad guitar fingerwork) gave their necks a workout once Danava began their seven-song set with the epic “Where Beauty and Terror Dance,” which led into “Quiet Babies Astray in a Manger.” During the third song the bass player stepped off the stage putting his arms around strangers, the drummer took to the synth and Dusty wailed ahead on a guitar solo.
Danava’s heavy instrumentals chugged up and down the scales taking us along into emotional peaks and valleys, thankfully never overdone with excessive vocal stylings. Dusty’s voice held up until the end when road ravages, the last night of tour and possibly the Denver elevation ended up taking pieces of it away. Some of the highs were cackled by the end; nonetheless effort and energy never felt lost. With a full room and the audience grasping for the sky, hands focused ahead waiting for the next womb-pulsing medleys. Ok my womb was pulsing. For you it could just be bowels.
During “Spinning Temple Shifting” the music invoked a view 100 feet above the air, flying over mountains and plains of orange fading into purple and dark blue. Questioning my head and where it was taking me, my doubts shifted after Dusty ended with, “I’d like to thank space and time.” With their late ’70s metal and prog leanings, Danava still looks ahead to the future without recreating or slipping into one genre comfortably. Their demeanor onstage and off implies no judgment, no fads — just an honest and straight-up epic riff barrage. Just like the bass player’s shirt said: “The Power of the Riff Compels.”
And it did.
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is a Denver freelance photographer and regular Reverb contributor.
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