Golden Gardens’ Aubrey Bramble, circa 2014. (photo: Tony Kay)
Three Seattle bands I love, all of whom I’ve written about more than once (and in the very recent past to boot), are dropping new releases this week that are totally worth your time. All three will be playing live shows tonight or tomorrow to commemorate those new releases, and all three recordings represent worthy continuations of each band’s respective ongoing story.
Sometimes that story is about refinement. Sometimes, it’s about changing gears. Reign, the latest full-length from gothic romantics Golden Gardens, pretty much represents both sides of that coin.
On the face of it, Reign is a representative slice of the band’s gossamer goth dance music. But rather than follow the ‘if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it’ ethos, GG have grown and expanded the scope of their sound.
Veteran producer Martin Feveyear’s work behind the boards accentuates the great stuff that’s already there. Aubrey Bramble’s spectral voice emerges in full flower—equal parts siren-song eerie (on album opener “La Belle Sans Merci”) and heart-on-sleeve little-girl-lost (“With Your Chariot Marked by Stars”). Feveyear’s low-key but effective touch also captures Gregg Neville’s walls of keys and guitars with crystal clarity.
The band’s stepped up with their most versatile batch of tracks yet. “Conventina” finds the band at its most richly dark and creepy, with Neville’s wheezing, clanking electronics wrapping their black-sleeved arms around Bramble’s haunted vocals, while “Immortality Forever” takes an unashamed dive into straightforward dance pop that’s at least as catchy as anything storming club playlists right now. You can judge for yourself as the band plays their record release show at Fremont’s High Dive tonight. (Surrealized and Eastern Souvenirs open, show at 8:30 P.M.) .
Restlessness has always been a hallmark of Ravenna Woods’ sound, a trait that’s definitely at the fore of their new EP on Rocket Heart Records, Alleyways and Animals. Two of the songs, “Falling on Your Face” and “Good Friend,” are textbook, lyrically-dark but cathartic Ravenna anthems, thrumming with exhilarating tension and fleshed out beautifully by the band’s expanded lineup. The biggest directional shifts occur on the EP’s other two cuts, the tightly-wound “Alleyways” (fully, geekily dissected in the above singles/EP link) and the elegiac piano ballad “Animal,” sung by multi-instrumentalist Brantley Duke in gorgeous, mournful falsetto.
Ravenna Woods celebrate their EP release at the Sunset Tavern Friday night (show at 9:00 p.m), and they’re such a reliably great live band you’re welcome to kick yourself vigorously if you miss it. It’s a stacked bill all around, too.
Middle-slotters Animal Eyes season their dizzying instrumental virtuosity with liberal doses of pop luminescence a la Brian Wilson and Grizzly Bear (I’m currently nursing a major band crush on the Portland band’s breathtaking current full-length, Where We Go), and former Kithkin madman Ian McCutcheon’s throaty baritone enriches the new-wave-meets-indie-folk loveliness of opening band Familiars.
Of course, wouldn’t you know it, across town there’s another unmissably great band celebrating another great release tomorrow evening.
Smokey Brights deftly walk an everything-including-the-kitchen-sink tightrope on their Freakout Records long-player Hot Candy, which gets a live workout at the band’s CD release show (Neumos, 8:00 p.m. doors). The sound here is darker, weirder, and tougher than their great debut full-length Taste for Blood, without sacrificing the band’s tunefulness.
Michael Kalnoky of Smokey Brights being all guitar-heroic. (photo: Tony Kay)
Keyboardist Kim West takes the mic for lead vocals as frequently as band leader (and husband) Ryan Devlin this time out, and the band’s all the richer for it. Her singing’s as versatile as the music backing her: She’s alternately breathily angelic and menacing on “Just One Thing,” a song that somehow crams new wave grooves, David Bowie apocalyptic glam, psychedelia, and prog-rock trickiness into one frickin’ song without losing its footing.
Most of the album hopscotches genres just as deftly (again, often within the same song), in no small part because these guys can seriously play. Nick Krivchenia’s strong drumming and Jim Vermillion’s nimble bass provide a terrific rhythmic foundation, but if the band didn’t gel so faultlessly as a unit, it’d be tempting to crown guitarist Michael Kalnoky the record’s MVP. His cabinet of six-string tricks is boundless, but never at the expense of the songs.
I’d estimate (at least) an eight-way tie for best-song honors on Hot Candy, but the one that’s currently edging towards constant replay for me is “Clumsy Mirror,” a ravishing little late-summer night ballad with a gently pulsing rhythm guiding Kalnoky’s sparkling trebly guitars, while Devlin’s airily gorgeous croon intertwines with West’s ocean breeze harmonies. It’s giving me chills just thinking about it.
Oh, and we’re talking another stacked bill, with Portland wunderkinds Radiation City and Seattle guitar pop band Sloucher rendering early arrival a necessity. I didn’t program this Sophie’s Choice of a Friday Night: I’m just writing about it, dude.
