The Sandwitches: Mrs. Jones’ Cookies

The Sandwitches lived up to the fanciful freakiness of their name on 2009’s How To Make Ambient Sad Cake, but it wasn’t until last year’s desolate Duck Duck Goose! EP that the San Francisco psych-rock trio started to sound downright, well, witchy. Things get even darker on Mrs. Jones’ Cookies, which kicks off with singers Heidi Alexander and Grace Cooper devilishly yelping over a cauldron of reverb-heavy guitars and the cursed gallop of drummer Roxy Brodeur’s gently syncopated beats on “In The Garden.” The quirky side of The Sandwitches can still be detected in those utterly singular harmonies, with Alexander holding down the low end while Cooper’s spine-tingling yodel blows across the top like tumbleweed on scorched terrain. But Mrs. Jones’ Cookies is a cloudier, creepier affair. The Sandwitches keep things stripped-down and spooky on gorgeously vexing songs like “Black Rider” and “Joe Says,” where the occasional organ fill provides the only sweetening to an otherwise shadowy mix of evil sounds and bad vibes. Reminiscent at times of a less muscular Black Mountain, The Sandwitches achieve genuine majesty on “Heaviest Head In The West,” which culminates in a shimmering guitar duel that nods heavily in the direction of Radiohead’s “Street Spirit.” Only this spirit is damned, and pulls you down in the dirt where the lost souls of Mrs. Jones’ Cookies live and breathe.