Spirits ready ‘Song Bird’s Grave’ 7-inch, prep second album

• Chad Hess

For its first offering since the haunted and alluring psych-folk of their split 7-inch with Order of the Owl, Spirits and the Melchizedek Children will issue a 7-inch featuring a new track, titled “Song Bird’s Grave,” backed with a version of the same song, re-imagined by experimental auteur Magicicada. The single serves as a whetting of the appetite for So Happy, It’s Sad, Spirits’ follow up to their 2011 debut, We Are Here to Save You (due out spring 2014). It also serves as the coming out of Spirits as a full-blown quintet with the addition of Iron Jayne guitarist Ryan Odom. The Spirits version of “Song Bird’s Grave” pushes the band’s spaciously dark rock to new heights, with a grim but upbeat rhythm section, a humable vocal hook, and a chilling string section. Meanwhile, Magicicada’s rework of the tune is a moving target of processed percussion and malformed ambiance, signaling toward an array of bombastic sounds, with trace amounts of ambient, post-rock, and post-punk.

The band plans to unveil the single with a release party at the Drunken Unicorn Fri., Nov. 9. In the meantime, stream Spirits’ We Are Here to Save YOU! below.

We Are Here To Save YOU! by Spirits and the Melchizedek Children

Spirits and the Melchizedek Children, Magicicada, and the Purkinje Shift. $5. 9 p.m. The Drunken Unicorn, 736 Ponce de Leon Ave.