'The Coiled One,' the Los Angeles-based Spahn Ranch's second studio album, is often cited as a favorite among musicians and fans alike. The album marked a tumultuous time in the band's career, yet creative strife did make for quite a diverse album that stepped away from previous efforts. Co-produced and engineered by Judson Leach, the album brings together sharp dance rhythms, both smooth and harsh electronics and programming provided by Matt Green and Rob Morton, with vocals by Athan Maroulis (currently of NØIR), 'The Coiled One,' was somewhat of a concept album built around the human mind slipping into madness against the filmic backdrop of poverty, piety, evil and machines. The title itself, 'The Coiled One,' a Satanic sea serpent, one of many biblical references that include “Locusts” and “Babel,” medieval zealot torture devices such as “The Judas Cradle,” and “Heretic's Fork,” leaps into the digital maelstrom in “Vortex,” the mechanized urban compulsion of “Compression Test,” and “Infrastructure,” and lamentations such as “Threnody.” With that in mind 'The Coiled One' could have been an apocryphal ending to the band, instead it was a new beginning. In less than 8 years, Spahn Ranch would go on to complete a total of 5 studio albums, 4 EPs and, in the process, perform more than 200 concerts in over a dozen countries before calling it a day in late 2000.
Bandcamp: https://officialspahnranch.bandcamp.com/album/the-coiled-one-remastered