Roky Erickson added a footnote to the hit parade through his raging 1966 recording with the Thirteenth Floor Elevators, “You’re Gonna Miss Me.” Although only a minor national hit, the single signaled a transition from garage rock to psychedelia. After the Texas songwriter and vocalist moved the Elevators to San Francisco, he probably imbibed a few more tabs of psychedelia than was healthy. His real problems began, however, when he was busted back home in Texas for a single joint and sentenced to a mental hospital for the criminally insane, where he was subjected to electro-shock by white coated henchmen who diagnosed him as schizophrenic.
Erickson’s sanity has been the subject of much speculation during the past 35 years of his sporadic, post-Elevators recording career. Whatever his state of mind, Erickson’s creativity seems to have reached a new peak on True Love Cast Out All Evil. Several tracks are built around rough cassette recordings made while in the asylum, including such moving affirmations of faith under pressure as “Devotional Number.” The new recordings travel with remarkable ease and emotional connection across several genres, conjuring the pulsating space rock of Hawkwind, the chiming moodiness of Blue Oyster Cult and the religious balladry of Luke the Drifter as well as straightforward, whiskey-voiced country rock. The lyrics are sometimes startling in their imagery (“suddenly my fireplace is friendly”) and in their unaffected honesty of expression. Unlike most 2010 recordings, True Love is an album with sonic integrity, a collection of songs that flow together like a river to the sea.
