I should say up front, I have a serious soft spot for heavy
music with powerful female vocals. Bands
like Holy Grove, Blues Pills, Disenchanter, Blood Ceremony, Windhand and a host
of other killer bands I’ve discovered in the last couple of years in the now
thriving underground heavy rock and metal scene. I think it’s a harkening back to my youth and
the dynamic female artists that were so powerful in either raw vocal talent,
range, songwriting ability, or a combination of all those factors, that they
simply couldn’t be dismissed by the rock industry of the 70’s and 80’s (no
matter how hard the industry tried) such as Ann Wilson from Heart, Pat Benatar,
the Pretenders’ Chrissie Hynde, Joan Jett, and Blondie’s Debbie Harry to name a
few. There’s just something compelling
about a female voice standing in front of the chainsaw snarl of electric
guitars, thumping bass guitar and the machine gun attack of drums properly
beaten into submission in the still mostly male-dominated world of heavy rock
and metal. This has been done to
devastating effect in the latter 2000’s beginning with the more symphonic metal
stylings of bands like Within Temptation and Delain, but until recent years,
very few of the new crop of more basic bluesy influenced rock and metal bands
featured female lead vocals. The onset
of the more riff-based styles of the “Doom Metal” subgenre especially, with
its’ fuzz-drenched down-tuned tones, slow driving tempos, and ultra-heavy rhythm
sections, has created a fascinating backdrop for the more melodic dulcet tones
produced by the female vocal cords. This
is not to say that they cannot be just as powerful and hard-edged as their male
counterparts by any means, in fact, in many cases they are equally, if not more
powerful.
Flash back to 2015, a random solo excursion to The Caravan
Lounge, San Jose’s best (in my opinion) place to go for a cheap beer, and good
old-fashioned ear pummeling barrage of riffology. Built like a cement bomb shelter with no
windows, seemingly no air conditioning (even the ceiling fans are missing
blades!), no stage riser or stage lights, and only the faintest semblance of a
proper P.A., but brimming with vibe and sheer concrete volume, The Caravan
plays host to all manner of heaviness several times a week, from punk to stoner
and doom, and to even more extreme forms of metal. Anywhere between 20 and
70-odd people (not 70 “odd people” haha!...that actually might be debatable…)
can be found gripping beers and bobbing or banging their heads in sweaty unison
to the thundering of the kick drum. I
chanced to go on a whim to a show I knew none of my compadres was going to,
with a handful of bands I knew nothing about, just a desire to hear some riffs
get dealt out and get my riff-fix on. A
couple of bands had gone through their paces and put on entertaining sets when
the next band, a trio, launched into their set and WHAM!!! I was hit between
the ears with a wall of the thickest doomy sound heard in a long time. The guitarist was dealing out riffs on his Les
Paul that would’ve made Iommi and Pike proud in equal measure, the bass player
plucking a fuzzy haze of notes from the netherworld on her white Fender P-Bass,
and the drummer pounding out the time like a sledgehammer alarm clock going
off. Then something unexpected happened,
the bassist opened her mouth and a haunting, almost angelic voice began weaving
melodies around the slab of sound coming from the amplifiers in a combination
of sonic dissonance that I recently described thusly;
”Brume's music evokes a clashing of two titans like Godzilla
versus King Kong with Susie's (bass guitarist & vocalist Susie McMullan)
vocals playing the part of Fay Wray pleading with the monsters to stop
fighting. Stunning beauty and Earth shattering heaviness in one colossal sonic
explosion.”
I was instantly captivated by the seamless marriage of two
seemingly dissimilar sounds, a contrast of light and dark that resonated in my
guts…literally, it was so loud in the Caravan that the bass and kick drum were
rattling my insides, not at all an uncommon occurrence at that locale. Unfortunately, the ramshackle P.A. was
struggling to keep up (also a common occurrence) and it was hard to hear the
aforementioned angelic tones. (At a more
recent gig in another San Jose venue with an even more ridiculous P.A. system I
shouted at my friend Jeff, whose band was also on the bill that night, filling
in for the non-existent sound guy at said club “crank Susie’s mic!!!”) Hard to hear or not, I was duly impressed and
convinced “they’ve got something special here.”
Shortly after that initial introduction to their music I purchased their
debut EP “Donkey” and was blown away by the music, but much as I liked it, I
found the vocals somewhat buried in the mix under all the awesome
instrumentation. When I learned they
were in the studio working on their first full-length I was excited but also
keeping my fingers crossed that the vocals would be up front in the mix. After receiving the digital promo for
“Rooster” two days ago, I’ve listened to it at least seven times and literally
cannot stop listening to it.
First and foremost, Susie’s vocals are right up
front in the mix and vary from soft and melodic, to desperate and pleading, to
downright powerful and gripping. Box
checked! Album starter “Grit and Pearls”
begins with a fuzzed out slow bass line before Jamie McCathie’s snarling guitar
doubles the bass along with Jordan Perkins-Lewis’ steady pounding rhythm, then
unexpectedly, the song boils down to a quiet guitar strumming in double time,
building back up with a fervent tempo as Perkins-Lewis displays his prowess
with one fantastic drum fill after another behind McMullan’s nimbly walked bass
lines as McCathie’s guitar growls out the power chords. (After hearing this breakdown the first time
I stopped the music and sat for a moment in stunned amazement and I believe the
word I uttered was “wow!”) “Harold”
begins with an acoustic guitar intro that is folky yet also brooding,
foreshadowing the doom to come before erupting into a slow electric dirge with
McMullin’s warning vocals forlorn and desperately pleading as if from beyond
the grave. “Reckon” begins with perhaps
my favorite vocal performance of the album, a soulful sorrowful lament:
“He walks
in slow
With his ox blood boots
He’s got a beard that’ll tell ya the truth
He rides real fast
On his busted up bike
He’s got hell burning in his eyes”
“Call the Serpent’s Bluff” is a mid-tempo (well, as close to
mid-tempo as Doom gets) stomper that sees McMullin belt out her most powerful
vocal performance yet in the verses, then melts into the ether with wispy
wailing in the pre-chorus and choruses.
“Welter” is a simply divine folky piece with acoustic guitar and the
faint echo of piano with an altogether different vocal delivery, ethereal, soulful
and hauntingly beautiful. “Trade Winds”
closes the album in bombastic waves of slow doom as the maelstrom envelops
everything in its’ mighty wake. Building
and building between quieter breaks in the storm and sheets of “hail and rain”
pounding down from the sky in an epic nearly twelve-minute conclusion.
“Rooster” is literally a giant leap forward from “Donkey” in
composition, performance, and production, and that’s saying a lot in comparison
to such a fantastic debut EP. The mix is well-balanced between the instruments
and the production leaves room for the music to breathe, even in its’ heaviest
moments.
“Rooster” has come pleading with the listener to pay
heed. Those who fall under its’ shadow
will be ensnared like the sailors of old following the siren’s call to their
doom upon the rocks. Speaking from
personal experience, these rocks are actually quite comfortable.
-Riffcaster
Rooster will be available on CD, cassette and digitally on
April 20th from Brume drummer Jordan Perkins-Lewis’s fledgling label, Doom Stew
Records. The 2xLP will be available in a variety of limited edition variants
via DHU in July.
Watch these spaces for preorders:
Artist: Brume
Album: Rooster
Label: DHU Records/Doom Stew Records
Release date: April 20th (CD) July (LP) 2017
Tracklist:
1. Grit and
Pearls
2. Harold
3. Reckon
4. Call the
Serpent’s Bluff
5. Welter
6. Tradewind
Brume are:
Susie McMullin - Vocals/Bass
Jordan Perkins-Lewis - Drums
Jamie McCathie - Guitar
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