I can't find an exact quote because this was years ago, back when this band was still a concept and not yet the surreal pop cult they've become, but in an interview sometime around the turn of the century, Tim DeLaughter emphatically dubbed Tripping Daisy's Jesus Hits Like the Atom Bomb (1998) by far one of that year's best and most underrated records. High praise, until you consider that Tripping Daisy is actually DeLaughter's old band -- one that broke up shortly after guitarist Wes Berggren's death in 2000, eventually leading to the formation of Polyphonic Spree: a touring twenty-odd piece symphonic hippie commune. Given their unfettered ridiculousness, it seems obvious that DeLaughter doesn't care about the cynical (and understandable) reactions to music so nauseously coy and cute and...I mean, christ, just look at this. He's too in love with his severely over-the-top music to compromise it, which makes him both a fascinating (and/or mindmeltingly shitty, depending on your stance) frontman, and also the kind of guy who would fawn over his own albums, or use his new band to cover his old one.

He's done this kind of thing before. On the self-titled Daisy album (their last; it includes a cameo from Wes' father, Don), the band re-did "One Through Four" from their debut, Bill, maturing the playful indie-pop of the original into an art-rock space jam (not Space Jam), revealing just how far the band's focus had changed in those seven years. With the one track, they'd effectively mapped their most bogus journey from point A (alt-rock jokesters) through an unfortunate point B ("I Got a Girl") to final point C: a short lived but genuinely great art-pop band capable of writing mini-epic anthems like "Sonic Bloom." But, since Jesus Hits got dropped something like two weeks after its release, coupled with lingering assumptions resulting from their "big single" like so many other mid-'90s alt-rock one-hit wonders, nothing ever came of it; things simply fell apart just as they began to hit their creative stride. DeLaughter, in making hyperbolic comments on his music's own behalf, acknowledged what the band had begun to achieve, and it's hard not to feel like he's using the Spree to finally and fully celebrate what was wasted with Tripping Daisy's shit-train of bad luck.

In this sense, the Spree covering a track from Jesus Hits seems not only natural but inevitable. Not only does DeLaughter get to advertise the record for himself, but, like his remake of "One Through Four," he's again able to highlight his artistic growth in the near decade since the song's original release.

Given how much the two bands differ (for one, there's literally five times as many members), the change isn't as drastic as you might figure. In fact, the cover is surprisingly faithful, recreating the same song with an expanded arrangement, softly airing out its verses with wind instruments, chimes and keys while forcefully lifting the song's irresistible chorus melody and unstoppable final minute with a full choir and a busier, more prominent bassline. The track's gooey, childlike sentimentality ("When love gets inside of you, it makes me invincible / and I can't believe this happened to me!") was an early archetype for the Spree anyway, so it makes perfect sense that they're able to capture the song's original feel, filling out its edges rather than recreating its core. How they managed to not go overboard in the process, as only the Spree could...well, that's more of a mystery.

Oh, and when you're done wondering why more of their music isn't this good, just track down Jesus Hits Like the Atom Bomb already and enjoy the kind of heights DeLaughter is now only able to cover, not top.

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