Garrett Gravley
Check Out The Stunningly Lush & Heavy New Collaborative Single From Duell’s Scott White And Rosegarden Funeral Party’s Leah Lane.
Welcome to Song of the Day, where we hip you to all the new local releases you should be caring about. By highlighting one new North Texas-sprung tune every week day, our hope is that you’ll find something new to love about the rich and abundant DFW music scene five days a week.
Deep Red – “Things We Can’t Way”
RIYL: Smashing Pumpkins, My Bloody Valentine, Black Tambourine, Failure and other gorgeously loud bands.
What else you should know: Rosegarden Funeral Party’s Leah Lane and Duell’s Scott White have joined forces for the new collaborative project Deep Red — and, right out the gate, their output has us singing hosannas.
The twosome’s just-released debut single, “Things We Can’t Say,” is a stunner, to be sure. It starts with the heavily-reverbed chord progressions that have become staples in the shoegaze genre, but with White and Lane’s combined vocals providing a refreshing resistance to the clichés contained therein.
See, most shoegaze acts engage in what can be described as explicit Bilinda Butcher and Jim Reid worship. Don’t get me wrong; shoegaze is perhaps one of the greatest musical exports of the late-’80s/early-’90s, but bands of late have generally not provided much by way of variation. (Apologies to A Place to Bury Strangers and Creepoid.)
Interestingly, especially considering Lane’s always-captivating vocal prowess, it’s White’s contributions that really give this track its most interesting characteristics. His subtle, intentionally buried contributions here come at a much higher register than most shoegaze vocalists, bringing to mind Thom Yorke or even Sigur Ros; Jonsi.
It’s a muddy track at large — the guitars also have their share of reverb and distortion — but none of it feels flashy or loud for the sake of being loud. In fact, the way each chord emits heavy feedback offers a vibrato and tension to the overall satisfyingly lush sound. About 90 seconds in, the double-tracked bass vocals chime in and add a harmony that sounds a bit like the Primitives. Moreover, this song — running at 3 minutes, 42 seconds — manages to remain stimulating even with maintaining the same tempo.
It isn’t fair to call it “shoegaze,” because such a label compartmentalizes bands and confines them to one specific sound that has already been done ad nauseum. So, no, Deep Red is not a shoegaze band.
But the band is a rock group that happens to be shoegaze-influenced. There’s a difference!
And, in capturing the sound of this exciting new collaborative project, that distinction is important.
Cover photo via Deep Red’s Facebook page.