Been digging through the inbox for stuff that my easily-distracted, wildly-disorganized brain may have missed or forgotten. This time, though, I was looking for something specific. Something I'd received in the last couple of weeks and had meant to mention. "That post-punk, Cure-sounding one..." Then I found it.
Big Bliss are a Brooklyn trio comprised of brothers Tim (vocals, guitars) and Cory Race (drums) along with Wallace May (bass, vocals). Prior to recruiting May, the Race brothers set about on their first official project together with an eye toward tapping into the influences of 70s and 80s post-punk. Big Bliss's debut, the five-song Keep Near, is almost like a class on those influences delivered with deadpan, New York cool.
Opener "Old Guard" kicks off with guitar that sounds like a speeded up version of the familiar guitar line from Echo and The Bunnymen's "Lips Like Sugar." As you might expect, the bass is a driving force here. The guitars alternate between bell-like and fuzzed, and the song is a head-whipping bouncer.
Early single "Ponzi" is another up-tempo track, the drums and guitars bouncing around each other over the words, "You look me in the eye. Are you unsatisfied as I am?" The vocals have that cold affectation similar to Paul Banks of Interpol. Like that band, there's an interesting contrast between the detached style and the emotional content of the music.
Keeping with that Interpol theme, "Command" has the vocals more prominent and up front; and the song has a much more early 21st-century feel than what's preceded it. It's back to danceable shoegaze pop for "Visitant."
Closer "High Ideal" is more expansive and open than the other songs on Keep Near. It has moments when the staccato click of the drums, the shoegazey guitars, and the driving bass line remind me of something like New Order's "Ceremony." Now, for me, that is maybe the greatest song of all time; and I don't presume to say that "High Ideal" is up there with that one. It's a good one, though, that comes close to bridging the post-punk we've heard up to this point with more traditional indie rock (The National?). The "Ceremony" note just popped into my head.
I've been on a bit of a post-punk kick lately, and Keep Near may have just hit me at the right time. Big Bliss aren't doing anything revolutionary here -- see Interpol, DIIV, and others. But what they are doing is a damn fine job with a well-traveled and much-loved (by me, anyway) genre.
Keep Near is out now on Exit Stencil Recordings.
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