Response Records

It’s been more than six years since Stockholm Syndrome has released an album. In that time, the band dropped German keyboardist Danny Dziuk and acquired Gov’t Mule’s Danny Louis. Meanwhile, drummer Wally Ingram – who has played with everyone from Jackson Browne to David Lindley – almost died from cancer and subsequently made a full recovery, frontman/guitarist Jerry Joseph got married and had a child, guitarist/vocalist Eric McFadden continued to fly under the radar as one of the scene’s truly great unknown talents and bass player Dave Schools also started a family while playing hundreds of shows with his other band, Widespread Panic.

Void of the political angst that fueled 2004’s debut Holy Happy Hour, Apollo is a more personal, positive and fully realized album – one that still crackles with intensity but is balanced by hope. Recorded in a converted chicken coup north of San Francisco, the album was produced by Schools and engineered by Terry Manning (Led Zeppelin, Big Star) and frequent WSP collaborator John Keane, who also adds haunting pedal steel.

The material is sprawling and loose, but these are well crafted songs with massive hooks, subtle nuances and air-tight rhythms. Joseph is one of the most prolific, and arguably talented, songwriters of his generation, and this album contains three of his best songs yet: “Apollo” is a seedy mid-tempo seven-minute epic with twisting dual guitars; “Emma’s Pissed” is in the vein of Joseph’s “North,” with a call-response cadence, rapid-fire pseudo-rap and chanting shaman breakdown; and disc closer “Wisconsin Death Trip” is a soulful, psychedelic gospel burner that makes clear why some (including Schools) refer to him as “The Reverend Jerry Joseph.”

Though we’d perhaps like to hear more from McFadden – who only takes lead vocals on “Sing Bird Sing” – such is the dynamic of this group. Originally a duo project between Schools and Joseph that evolved into a full blown quintet, the latter has never had a better band than this. One can only imagine what might happen should schedules allow this to be everyone’s priority.