Broken Spirits

Brent Burkhart — better known around Denver (and, indeed, much of the planet) as Reverend Deadeye — has taken a brief respite from his globe-trotting, one-man antics to record the debut EP by his side project, Broken Spirits. It's titled Ghostrock Spirituals, and it's hard to imagine a name that would better fit it. Swimming through reverb like an astronaut in outer space, Burkhart stretches his blues-punk frenzy into an atmospheric, yet no less earthy, set of simmering blues. As drifting and hazy as tracks like "Last Supper" can get, though, Burkhart — backed on upright bass by the Tarmints' Bobby Jamison and on drums by former American Relay member Alex Hebert — injects some of that trademark Deadeye fury into "Mama's Revolution" and "Shake You," the latter being a particularly toothy specimen of Broken Spirits' muddy, moody, muted onslaught. Where Reverend Deadeye's raw, righteous attack aims straight for your soul, Ghostrock hangs back and floats above the fray, content to haunt instead of convert.