Single Review: Routine Death - "Demo Tracks"

Routine Death - Demo Tracks

(2017 Self-Released)

What makes Austin, Texas such a hotbed for Gothic sounds? With average temperatures sitting snugly in the mid-90s all summer, the Lone Star State doesn't seem like the ideal place to dress exclusively in shades of black. To my knowledge, -- which is admittedly limited to Google searches -- Austin's not architecturally dominated by grotesque or Bauhaus aesthetics. Even on a historical level, I associate the city more with the mid-00s post-rock produced by Explosions in the Sky, This Will Destroy You, and Balmorhea than anything remotely similar to what Factory Records produced in its heyday.

Maybe it's just a coincidence that many of my favorite Goth releases of the past few years have emerged from Austin's local scene. Two darkwave-y bands that have fared quite well on my year-end top 10 lists call the city home. Captive, whose Black Leather Glove LP wheezes with pneumonic synths and clattering snares, have been quiet as of late, but still regularly find rotation in my iTunes library on the strength of cuts like "The Fool" and "Endless Lust". Sacred Bones signees Institute are more prolific, effortlessly churning out classic post-punk records that feel equally indebted to Minutemen and Joy Division. If shoegaze duo Routine Death drop some studio material as strong as the two demo cuts currently hosted on their homepage, they might very well earn a spot among my favorite Texan gloom-slingers. 

A-side "The Impossibility of Paying Our Debts" spins like an early Captured Tracks single, winding a looped guitar riff -- soggy with reverb -- around trashed percussion. Lisa Zozaya's vocals ring out as if they were shouted into the depths of the sort of absurdly spacious sewer tunnel only seen in video games and cartoons. They're tinny residue molding on steel walls; clinging to the blank space between chords. Every tone in the track feels more implied than perceived. Maybe you've peeped them through a veil, or eavesdropped with a cupped ear pressed against the door. 

Flip-side "Star Alliance" is -- as its title suggests -- even more spaced-out than its predecessor. Fried melodies pop and sizzle like bacon grease against droning chords, sounding something like the Velvet Underground blasted on a Beats pill by a discourteous passenger on the bus. Zozaya stretches syllables across several bars, sending wriggling noodles of human emotion out into the cosmos. The song never really works its way into a discernable groove, but doesn't need to: "Star Alliance" is a space unto its self, its boundaries and levels of gravity shifting like tides. Don't try to find your footing. It isn't there.

Looking for a perfect solar eclipse-viewing soundtrack? Prepare for this Monday by streaming and downloading the single here.

Review: Agjijer - "demo"

Agjijer - demo

(2017 Self-Released)

Math-Rock's a fun genre tag to toss around in a music review -- it's a cute classification that lends itself perfectly to numerical metaphor. Unfortunately, it's also a pretty imprecise way to describe music. Think about it this way: when I use the term "Math-Rock" without any given context, what springs to mind? Frenetic instrumental fret-mashing? Distorted screamo recorded in someone's basement? Bittersweet weaves of American Football-inspired noodling? Most musical mathematicians fall into one of three of these sonic categories. In the case of Tokyo's Agjijer, though, the band's untitled demo tape falls into each of them, spanning their timbral and compositional breadth over the course of seven short minutes.

Opener "henteko" channels the jittery jazz-punk of fIREHOSE, volleying dissonant chords off a wall of digital hi-hats like a tennis player practicing their returns. Bass chases the rhythm guitar as it zig-zags its way through impressive contortions before unfurling into a spacey psych-rock solo. The track shows off the band's technical proficiency while getting the brainy weirdness out of the way early -- it's a good choice for an opening track, and the demo's most replayable offering. 

Track 2 cranks up the speed and the volume, transitioning a screeching peal of sci-fi synthesizer into a burst of black-metallic thrash. At 66 seconds, "kowabali" is tough to process on an initial listen. Textures supercollide against driving percussion, masking the record's only vocals (barely-decipherable yowls) beneath a shade of overcast clouds. The audio cuts out mid-verse. It's a flash-flood, a torrential downpour that quickly dries up in the summer heat. Intense, but gone before you know it.

"somemore" is Agjijer's most traditional track, but also its prettiest. It's a mid-tempo groove in the vein of TTNG, lavishing gently strummed open chords on its chilled-out arrangement, then leaping headfirst into an Explosions in the Sky crescendo. It's a solid, serviceable counterpoint to its predecessors that makes for a decent conclusion.

Though not entirely cohesive, Agjijer's demo is a showcase of the band's versatility and knack for setting distinct moods. With the potential on display here, the Tokyo math-rock outfit could very well have the ability to drop an innovative, genre-bending LP in the future. I'm looking forward to seeing what's in store.

Review: Pastoralia - "Demo"

Pastoralia - Demo

(2016 Self-Released)

Angel Hair riffs lie heaped beneath a film of bubbles, frayed like used dental floss by an astringent chorus-pedal effect. Philadelphia's Pastoralia brings pliant stretches of warbly guitars to boil and cooks them to al dente texture. Pockets of breathability are sifted through a sieve of analogue crunch, leaving behind the springy bed of skin-soft shoegaze that forms the dream-pop duo's debut demo-tape. 

Inaugural number "Forget" tiptoes forth on a skittering beat as flautal wisps of keyboard weave their way through mesh walls of twangy chords. Pastoralia's brand of twee is as fleshy-yet-translucent as the disembodied facial features that appear on their demo's cover art; it is intimate, yet brittle to the touch. Vocals are delivered with a sort of hushed conviction, waxing emotive but restrained enough to avoid shattering the fragile instrumental shell that houses them. 

"History"is a slithering mass of reverb slime that moves with the languid griminess of Dinosaur Jr's "Thumb". Overdriven Casio keys grind against folky strumming, this friction leaving the track with a sandpapered exterior. Eerie instrumental "Haze" - which could be mistaken for a vaporous demo from The Cure's Head on the Door sessions - follows. Despite the lack of vocals, it's the strongest tune of the trio, perhaps taking influence from the sweatered sound of an Orchid Tapes compilation.

Graze in pastoral fields of dream-matter.

Single Review: Seventeen Years - "yas"

seventeen years - yas

(Self-Released 2015)

Seventeen Years has become a fixture of sorts on this blog, appearing in compilations, end-of-the-year lists and even on a special Half-Gifts tape release in early 2014. Over the course of the past 16 months, the incredibly prolific dream pop outfit has amassed three albums' worth of shoegazey post-punk. What once was the solo project of Kansas City's Tony Freijat has blossomed into a trio; the result is an even more polished and hard-hitting version of the immersive nu-gaze "brand" that the Missouri-based songwriter has established so deftly. Yas, the first full-band demo recording that the project has to offer, feels like a theatrical preview of things to come. It's brief, incisive, and features the signature elements of Freijat's previous work that I've come to love. There's the krautrock-y bassline, the brilliantly shimmery lead guitar, the nearly wordless vocals, the linear strong structure that culminates in a crescendo. The fingerprints he leaves all over his work are as undeniable as Kubrick's "one point perspective", Wes Anderson's pastel color pallet, a Hitchcock cameo appearance. If anything, this demo is an improvement on what Seventeen Years has been already been doing perfectly and quietly since the project's inception.

Linoleum Dream - Self-Titled EP

Linoleum Dream - EP

(Self-Released 2014)

"Ethereal" is one of the terms most often employed to describe recent shoegaze releases, and for good reason: 21st century new-gazers tend to borrow from the genre's more delicate aspects, its glimmering guitars and bouyant drone, yet they seem to forget about the brute force that a roaring wall of sound can deliver. There's a certain muscle evident in the meaty chords of Swervedriver's "Duel" and the pounding drums that open MBV's "Only Shallow" that is integral to the genre - even the Cocteau Twins knew the importance of balancing a smooth, velvety timbre with the occasional hit of abrasion or sour-ness. Oakland's Linoleum Dream hold firm to this virtue on their self-titled debut, spindly tangles of lead guitar giving way to an all-consuming storm of grim, metallic distortion and in-your-face percussion on the opening cut, "Iridescent". Dylan Burton's vocals are not sung so much as they are breathed, evaporating into misty nothingness, the masculine equivalent of Belinda Butcher's vague intonation. In true shoegaze fashion, the release is a 3-song EP, each track spanning 5+ minutes and reveling in its own dreaminess. For a dream-pop superfan like myself, Linoleum Dream is a breath of fresh air. Give them a try below.