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Spacecraft 7
Lonesome Torpedo Redux
(independent) - 2024
Michael Panontin
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Spacecraft 7's Lonesome Torpedo Redux may seem to have dropped from out of nowhere, but the Toronto-based quartet's two guitarists actually go back decades. "Billy J. Coombs and I formed Spacecraft 7 in 1995 in Toronto," Marc Fedak told CM recently. "Before we both moved to Toronto, we were in a Windsor alternative rock band Groundwater in the early 1990s and both of us also were involved with [Windsor alternative radio station] CJAM for several years."
After the usual personnel changes, the group has long settled around a line-up of guitarists Coombs and Fedak, along with bassist David Novak and drummer Dwight Schenk. Though the group hasn't actually played live since 2017, there were, as Fedak is keen to point out, "memorable shows in Toronto at the alternative music series Wavelength (Sneaky Dee's and other venues), Cameron House, bars in Kensington Market, once at El Mocambo, and several times at the Tranzac Club, and we played a few out-of-town shows in Hamilton, Oshawa and Buffalo (and I think also once in Windsor in 2013)."
Lonesome Torpedo Redux marks Spacecraft 7's proper debut recording (after a limited calling-card CD EP, This Is Spacecraft 7, that was mostly sent out to campus and community radio stations in 2000). The band's name notwithstanding, the ten tracks here actually span a range of influences, from the Velvet Underground, Hawkwind and Syd Barrett-era Pink Floyd to late-70s/early-80s post-punk, especially the lo-fi charms of Half Japanese. The record kicks off with the quasi-eponymous 'We Are the Spacecraft', a thrilling psychfest of spiralling guitar and driving proto-punk that is probably the closest the record comes to early-seventies space rock. Fedak's 'Syd Barrett' is another goodie and is exactly what you would expect - it's both musically and lyrically as whimsical and off-kilter as its namesake. Even better is '20/20 Vision', which sets the controls to the heart of 1979, adding a touch of synthesizer and a bit of new wave quirk into its mix.
Without a proper physical release, and given its lo-fi inadequacies - the vocals can be pretty weak at times - Lonesome Torpedo Redux will probably go unnoticed save for the most ardent Bandcamp/Spotify anoraks. Still, its pleasures are many, and those few cyber diggers will be justly rewarded.
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