Psychedelic rock supergroup continues to impress with a four-song EP companion piece to last year’s critically acclaimed album.
There are very few musical collaborations doing the rounds these days as talented as The Third Mind. Formed by Grammy-winning legend and guitarist extraordinaire Dave Alvin and bassist Victor Arummenacher, with the sole intent of creating a band that thrived on spontaneity and improvisation, inspired by how iconic jazz trumpeter Miles Davis and his producer Teo Macero created some of his classic early 1970s electric albums, such as Bitches Brew and Jack Johnson. The duo were joined in the studio by guitarist Dave Immerglück, drummer Michael Jerome, singer-songwriter Jesse Sykes, and special guest Willie Aron on piano and organ, coming together to record their eponymous debut album that was released in 2020. They made their first live appearance at Hardly Strictly Bluegrass in 2023, releasing their second album that same year. A series of tour dates was recorded for the 2025 sprawling Live Mind, which also featured guitarist Mark Karan, before, in the Autumn of last year, they released their third studio album, Right Now.
The idea behind Spellbinder, this new four-track extended-EP, with a playing time of 36 minutes, is to offer a companion piece to last year’s studio album, whilst at the same time leaning back towards the band’s original improvisational vision. Thus, this quartet of songs, of which the title track is the only one not to have appeared on either the CD or the download link to Right Now, draws heavily on the musical prowess and inventiveness of the band—opening with the title track, a bold instrumental reinterpretation of a song that was itself the title track to the seminal 1966 album from Hungarian-American guitarist Gabor Szabo, who was a massive influence on both Immerglück and Carlos Santana among others. Here, the band excels, pushing back the songs’ original Latin groove boundaries, exploring undiscovered possibilities with Immerglück mischievously adding an unexpected final layer using the iKaossilator synth app on his iPhone, resulting in a hypnotic free-form piece that merges jazz with psychedelic ambience.
Elsewhere, Reap What You Sow, a song written by Mike Bloomfield and Nick Gravenites for blues legend Otus Rush, that was omitted from the band’s vinyl version of Right Now due to length constraints, is rightfully reinstated in all its glory with Sykes transcendental vocals harnessing the space between a young Bonnie Dobson and Grace Slick in full abandon, while Alvin’s guitar playing is simply off the chart. Also included is an updated version of ” Before We Said Goodbye, a song co-written by Alvin and Sykes, which here receives a lush string arrangement recorded by Stevie Blacke that includes an octave violin, transforming the original version into an anthemic masterpiece.
The concluding tracks are the same two songs that closed Right Now, with renowned mixing engineer Tchad Blake deftly merging the Jesse Colin Young classic Darkness Darkness with The Creator Has A Master Plan into one expansive cinematic, epic realisation, that continuously builds in crescendos, full of tension and release, allowing Sykes vocals to weave seamlessly around the musical interplay, which results in fifteen minutes of the most astonishing listening experience your likely to have heard since those heady days of the late 1960s and the music of The Grateful Dead and The Allman Brothers.
With Spellbinder, The Third Mind have done far more than offer a companion piece to last year’s acclaimed album; instead, they have continued to expand their musical horizons, delivering 36 minutes of the highest-quality music, regardless of genre. Okay, three of the songs appeared on last year’s album release, albeit here with a reimagined mix. However, for those who already own Right Now, the one new track is still worth the admission fee, while for those not yet familiar with what The Third Mind have to offer, this new release would be a perfect opportunity to discover what is possibly the finest and musically adventurous act of the twenty-first century.
