LSD and the Search for God

LSD and the Search for God hit the Northern California coast in 2005, seemingly from another place and time, dosing San Francisco with hypnotic shows built on swirling guitars, otherworldly drones, fuzzed-out pop melodies, and dreamy vocal harmonies.

Early shows and recordings drew comparisons to My Bloody Valentine, Slowdive, Yo La Tengo, Spacemen 3, and Sonic Youth, helping the band quickly earn a reputation as a must-see act within the Northern California underground shoegaze and psych scene.

Their self-titled debut EP (Mind Expansion Records, 2007; Don Giovanni, 2025) sold out before its official release date, earned critical acclaim, and continues to appear on lists of essential shoegaze releases.

All five songs cemented the band as key players in the late-2000s shoegaze revival. But the fourth track, “Starting Over,” emerged as a defining moment. It captures the genre’s essence with submerged vocal harmonies and a finely balanced guitar interplay that drifts between hushed intimacy and sweeping wall-of-sound swells. Striking a rare space between vulnerability and grandeur, “Starting Over” has grown beyond a fan favorite into a modern shoegaze anthem — one that feels inseparable from the movement it helped shape.

With anticipation building around their cult-classic debut, the band delivered a second EP that surpassed expectations, expanded their sound, and sharpened their vision. Heaven Is a Place (Space Age Recordings, 2016; Don Giovanni, 2025) frequented many Best Of lists and, according to It’s Psychedelic Baby Magazine, is “…controlled pop that matters, weaving their sound with fuzz, reverb, feedback and an eternal bliss that will melt you in place.”

Pop Matters calls it, “a long-awaited sermon for the faithful and a blazing induction for new converts,” while Primal Music says it’s “another astonishing collection of five psychedelic stories glistening with the same spaced out ingredients that blew my mind way back in 2007.”