Grave Babies’ name does not exactly scream “listen to me now!” and the album art of the band’s new album, Crusher, does not exactly scream “buy me now!” So instead here I am screaming – buy this album now! Crusher was released on Hardly Art Records on February 26 and for those who make it past the band’s exterior, the album is a worthwhile listen for returning fans (of whom, as you can see from past stories, Best New Bands is one) and new ones alike. While its gothy publicity isn’t exactly a misrepresentation, it is an exaggeration. Crush is not solely a goth-rock album, but rather a noisy fusion of industrial darkness with a noticeably sharp pop sensibility.
With this duality (or maybe multiplicity because it’s just so much more than just goth and pop!), Grave Babies managed to produce a very noisy album without producing an intrusive or a monotonous one. There’s enough diversity and surprises in each track as to not simply be an emission of very loud sounds, which is much appreciated. Where noise rock can sometimes blend everything together, Crusher allows individual tracks to stand out and individual moments within tracks to stand out.
The track “Skulls” is a perfect example. Here, Grave Babies created an almost slow-motion effect on its sound with disjointed vocals and instrumentals. I can only imagine a crowd uncertain of which impulse, which pulse, to follow – the skillful drag of the vocals or the deliberate drive of the song as a whole. Where the body would certainly be engaged in a live setting, this quality allows the ears to be just as entertained listening to the recorded album (although I think it might excel more live).
The lo-fi quality of the recorded album does create an abrasiveness at times that interrupts an otherwise loudly pleasant album when the poor production masks potentially intriguing complexities. That lo-fi sound is such a distinguished characteristic of the album, however, that the few times it does diminish from the record are irrelevant at best.
Additionally, and only somewhat irrelevantly, this album introduced me to something really cool that’s happening on this here Internet– the album review in video format! The Needle Drop – the personal project of the self-proclaimed “busiest music nerd” just talked about Crusher for about seven minutes to the camera, which he’s also done with big names like Nick Cave and STRFKR; way to go Grave Babies!
You can listen to Grave Babies on Soundcloud or buy it from Hardly Art Records.
