Saturday, August 23, 2014

Stress Waves - Orphic Ruin (2014)

It is nice to see when the Australians are paying attention to the blog, as I never intended for this blog to have any degree of localized scope and I'm genuinely thrilled to get submissions from all across the world. Some of you may recall the post of the very excellent garage rock group, White Lodge, from a couple of weeks ago. That write-up seems to have piqued some interest from follow Queenlanders, Stress Waves. Unlike their geography, their music isn't terribly close stylistically, yet they are very similar inasmuch that they both make very good music.

Orphic Ruin is an excellent name for the album Stress Waves have put together. The very word Orphic summons decadent imagery, to make a literary reference. The songs are gloomy, moaning and intangible. This is done artfully as fuck though, with the snyths really taking a starring role as the sound off against the constant percussion and droning backgrounds of mechanical regularity. Basically, it isn't party music, but it is very emotionally evocative. I have already listened to the album all the way through several times, and each time I find myself picking out more from the songs, as the lyrics are increasingly decipherable and the rhythms more clearly recognizable. I'd liken the experience to spending time taking in a painting, the longer one dwells on it the more there is to like about it and experiences to take away from it. If this is what "cold wave" sounds like then I am one hundred percent on board, but I think that for most of us it'd be easiest to called it post-punk. However you label it, these Brisbane musicians know how to make a powerful sound.

To be had here:
Stress Waves - Orphic Ruin

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