Local Heavy Psych Band Celebrates New Album

One of the Bay Area's current leading lights on the psychedelic-meet-prog frontier of heavy music, Mondo Drag seems poised for big things. Founded a decade ago in Davenport, Iowa, by singer/keyboard player John Gamino, guitarist Jake Sheley and guitarist/synth player Nolan Girard (the three have been playing together since their teens), Mondo Drag relocated to Oakland two years ago and added drummer Ventura Garcia and Andrew O'Neil.

The quintet released its first recording with the new line-up last year, an eponymous effort on Riding Easy Records that earned the band some of its best reviews yet with its fuzzed-out guitar leads and swirling Hammond organ and synth grooves. In January, prog-metal greats Mastodon hand picked Mondo Drag to open a packed free Converse Rubber Tracks show at the Chapel.

On Tuesday at the Elbo Room in San Francisco's Mission District, the group will be celebrating its latest album The Occultation Of Light that came out late last month prior to heading out on a European tour playing with the likes of Pentagram and Elder. Powered by the band's growing arsenal of vintage keyboard sounds, the new record delivers hefty sounds that at times recall the heavy-prog boogie of '70s British rockers Uriah Heep. The band will be joined by all-female, flute-driven SF psych-metal outfit Queen Crescent and Fine Points, a side project for Sleepy Sun guitarists Matt Holliman and Evan Reiss that will put out its debut album this summer.

Mondo Drag
Tuesday, March 29, 9 p.m. $5-$10
The Elbo Room