Viva Saturn - Ships Of Heaven (1998)

Some time ago I downloaded an unreleased album by Viva Saturn from the False Memory Foam blog, as I'm a great fan of the band, and so obviously wanted to hear anything that I didn't already have. Viva Saturn was put together by Steven Roback when his main band Rain Parade decided to take a break in 1988, and along with fellow Rain Paraders John Thoman and Will Glenn, the band recorded a self-titled mini-LP, which was released on Pat Thomas' San Francisco-based Heyday Records and World Service/Rough Trade UK in 1989. The following year, after Glenn left to join David Roback's Mazzy Star, the band relocated to San Francisco, where Rain Parade co-founder Matt Piucci joined to play guitar and assist with studio production. Over the next few years they used various musicians, including bassist Ross Inden and drummer Carlo Nuccio, to record a series of acclaimed neo-psychedelic albums, including 'Soundmind' in 1992, and the more pop, but still electro-acoustic psychedelia-rooted 'Brightside' in 1995. The band recorded a final album, 'Ships Of Heaven', in 1997, but when it was delivered to Reckless Records in 1998 they decided to pass on it, which led to the eventual break-up of the band, after which Roback embarked on a solo career. There was minimal information about the album, which had come from one of the site's regular visitors, and it contained eight songs from the up-coming release on Reckless Records, but there were no track titles, and it was also noticeable that the title track was missing, so by adding that back in we could hear almost the whole 'Ships Of Heaven' album. It's always frustrated me that I didn't know what the songs were called, but recently I found a podcast where Viva Saturn mainman Steven Roback talked at length about this shelved album, and as well as giving the titles for the songs, they also played a taster of each one, so at last I could finally put title to track. It seems that when the album was rejected, Roback pressed up around 100 copies himself, and distributed them to deserving recipients, and the track listing for this CD was:    

01 Angel Sister
02 Ships Of Heaven 
03 Bury The Axe
04 Change Everything
05 Thursday's Bright   
06 Out Of Reach
07 Whirlwind   
08 Quality Time 
09 Valentine's Day 
10 Dream Came True  
11 Needle And The Damage Done

'Out Of Reach' and 'Valentine's Day' were both acoustic demos by Roback, but neither of them were on the album that I downloaded, although there was another track on there which seemed to be called 'So I'm Gone', so it looks like this eight track sampler was not the same as the one pressed up by Roback in 1998, but was possibly a promo issued by the record company themselves before they cancelled it. I noticed that on the Roback version he'd added his cover of Neil Young's 'The Needle And The Damage Done' to close it, which he'd recorded for a Neil Young tribute album, 'This Note's For You Too!' in 1999. If it was able to be added to the CD then it must have been recorded in 1998, so I've added that to the end of this disc, stretching the record to a perfectly acceptable 35 minutes. The podcast was a fascinating insight into the making of the album, so if any fans want to listen to it, you can find it here.     

Track listing

01 Angel Sister
02 Ships Of Heaven 
03 Bury The Axe
04 Change Everything
05 Thursday's Bright   
06 So I'm Gone
07 Whirlwind   
08 Quality Time 
09 Dream Came True  
10 The Needle And The Damage Done

Thank to the False Memory Foam blog for providing this in the first place.