By: Stephen Murray
Album Type: Split
Date Released: 10/03/2017
Label: Independent
“Greenhorn/Urchin” DD//LP Track listing:
1.
Greenhorn – “The
Narrator”
2.
Urchin – “Meteor
Blade”
The Review:
What
is it with the sea and some of doom’s more sombre bands? The rich nautical
repertoire of songs about the hauntings of dead sailors, ghost ships and
ungainly, ill-omened seabirds notwithstanding, the Big Water has proved an
irresistible draw for many bands. Indeed, there appears to be three themes
prevalent in doom right now: the sea, the occult and H.P. Lovecraft, and the
greatest of these is Lovecraft (go on, argue for the occult; I’m listening).
Written
over three months and recorded live in a few hours, albeit with two different
vocal sessions, Greenhorn’s “The Narrator” evokes the
sea through a petroleum-jelly-soft Lovecraftian lens. Not to say this track
lacks throat, rather that it balances gnarled guitar tones that roil and gurgle
with the allure and seduction of ethereal Siren calls rendered in
beautiful-if-creepy sung harmonies. The rich vintage glow swathed about both
guitar and bass in the solos satisfies like muscovado sugar, bringing melody to
the fore of the song’s nigh twenty minute span.
And
this is why it is so well paired with Urchin’s “Meteor
Blade.” We are back down to the forbidding water’s edge, but more than
that, we have a vintage feel and a haunting, darkling melody carefully stitched
onto something primal and untamed. The vintage here is different, however,
calling back cassette tapes left to go brittle on a sunbleached dashboard and
the hazy reverb of the 90s alternative scene. Indeed, halfway through the song
a delicate, woozy melody leverages a fair slab of pathos before breaking out
once again in wails of agony.
Altogether
a well-matched release allowing both acts to shine their own eerie lights, and
with plenty of aggro, but with the emotional variation and nostalgic tones
selling it.
