It was another one of those weeks when I didn’t have enough time for a round-up of new music. I started working on the one you’re about to read last Tuesday, hoping to post it on Wednesday, which of course I didn’t, and Thursday and Friday were failures, too. Since I began working on it, many other worthy new songs have debuted, but rather than spend time assessing those and revising/expanding this round-up, I’m just leaving it as originally conceived.
BRUME
November 22 is the release date (via Magnetic Eye Records) for a new album by the San Francisco-based doom trio Brume. The band’s first two releases were named Donkey and Rooster. This one is named Rabbits. For reasons I can’t quite articulate, I love the album cover. Maybe I love it because it’s mysterious, or ambiguous, or maybe because it doesn’t quite prepare you for the harrowing music within, which could serve as the soundtrack to the kind of terrifying rabbit existence depicted in Watership Down.
I write those words based only on the two tracks I’ve heard so far, which are up on Bandcamp. “Scurry” is a mid-paced heavy-weight crusher, a gigantic head-mover, and for all the bleakness in its core riffing, a damned catchy song. Susie McMullan‘s intense, sky-high vocals are amazing, creating a searing contrast with the mountainous heaving momentum beneath them, and when the lead guitar trades places with her, it’s a beautiful evolution.
Past the mid-point, the intensity of the song diminishes, and a different and more soulful dimension emerges from McMullan‘s voice, while the surrounding music becomes more dreamlike, but still harrowing, still doomed. Ultimately, the song crushes again, though more slowly, and this time it’s the soul that’s crushed, as well as the cranium.
I’ll tell you right now, since we’re nearing year-end, “Scurry” has already earned a place on my forthcoming Most Infectious Song List. The other song now available for listening, “Lament“, is longer and uses that extra time to build a grander edifice. The long instrumental opening is bright in its sound and hypnotizing in its effect, though it will get your head moving too. When McMullan‘s voice emerges, it’s again beautifully soulful, and guitarist Jamie McCathie‘s voice again creates an enticing harmony with her.
This prelude is quite good on its own, but it’s leading us somewhere. The vocals and the instruments gradually build in intensity, as a teaser of what will eventually come. Through another instrumental passage, the music becomes more moody and also more mystical, and then we begin climbing the craggy, broken hill again. McCathie‘s riveting solo pulls us upward, while McMullan‘s bass and the hard-hitting drumwork of Jordan Perkins-Lewis bring the neck-wrecking sledgehammers down. Before the end, when the drum pattern changes, we discover yet another dimension of McMullan‘s voice, one which reminded me of Janis Joplin, backed by soaring voices.
PRE-ORDER:
https://brumesf.bandcamp.com/album/rabbits
FACEBOOK:
https://www.facebook.com/brumeband/
