Brudenell Social Club
33 Queen's Road, Leeds
Mon
September 30, 2024
7:30 pm
BST
Brudenell Presents...
Buzzard Buzzard Buzzard
£14.00 adv.
Following on from their Welsh Music Prize nominated debut album ‘Backhand Deals’ in 2022, the band wrote and recorded the album at frontman and producer Tom Rees's Rat Trap studio, the room where Rees has previously recorded and produced tracks for emerging talent - Panic Shack, Do Nothing and The Bug Club. The material – as previewed on “Therapy” and their earlier single “Chew” – showcases a heavier and more disquieting sound than anything the band have released to date.
This darker sound and aesthetic take inspiration from found-footage horror and the Navajo concept of the Skinwalker – a legendary malevolent shapeshifter – from which the album takes its name. Thematically, each track on the record is designed to take you through descending floors of Rees’s mind each becoming more horrific than the last with the Skinwalker at the final floor, representing his inner fears, self-sabotage, hatred, and self-doubt. It’s a deeply intimate record of self-analysis and personal growth told through heavy fuzz-drenched guitars, a crushing rhythm section, and fevered vocals.
The band still carry that same the fast-paced energy and subtle trademark ‘70s references from their earlier releases though, and this is particularly evident on the danceable, indie-funk inflected new single “National Rust”.
Speaking on the single Rees says, "'National Rust' was my attempt at consolidating my 2020 obsession with Sly and the Family Stone with my 2021 obsession with David Bowie's album ‘Low’. It was the first song that really paved the way for the new album, it broke a lot of the sonic boundaries that I was writing within when starting the second album, “I AM NOT AFRAID OF PLAYING FUNKY GUITAR!”, I exclaimed, mu-tron in hand.
Lyrically, it made a statement that informed my songwriting moving forward as well, being a flagrant rejection of my previous political song writing, and an admission of alienation amongst a plethora of information. 'National Rust' acts as a bridge between my younger, more political perspective, and my more recent, more apathetic one."
Elsewhere on the record, the harmony-filled “In My Egg” sees Rees sing about the struggles to force yourself out of your comfort zone, whilst “Human Compression” see the band delve into an almost desert-rock sound with hazy, unrelenting guitar work supporting Rees’s lyrics about the pressure he puts on himself. The psychedelic glam-tinged “Night Of The Skinwalker” – a song which centres around his struggles with self-doubt- marks the albums opus, melding a number of styles and genres across almost six minutes.
This darker sound and aesthetic take inspiration from found-footage horror and the Navajo concept of the Skinwalker – a legendary malevolent shapeshifter – from which the album takes its name. Thematically, each track on the record is designed to take you through descending floors of Rees’s mind each becoming more horrific than the last with the Skinwalker at the final floor, representing his inner fears, self-sabotage, hatred, and self-doubt. It’s a deeply intimate record of self-analysis and personal growth told through heavy fuzz-drenched guitars, a crushing rhythm section, and fevered vocals.
The band still carry that same the fast-paced energy and subtle trademark ‘70s references from their earlier releases though, and this is particularly evident on the danceable, indie-funk inflected new single “National Rust”.
Speaking on the single Rees says, "'National Rust' was my attempt at consolidating my 2020 obsession with Sly and the Family Stone with my 2021 obsession with David Bowie's album ‘Low’. It was the first song that really paved the way for the new album, it broke a lot of the sonic boundaries that I was writing within when starting the second album, “I AM NOT AFRAID OF PLAYING FUNKY GUITAR!”, I exclaimed, mu-tron in hand.
Lyrically, it made a statement that informed my songwriting moving forward as well, being a flagrant rejection of my previous political song writing, and an admission of alienation amongst a plethora of information. 'National Rust' acts as a bridge between my younger, more political perspective, and my more recent, more apathetic one."
Elsewhere on the record, the harmony-filled “In My Egg” sees Rees sing about the struggles to force yourself out of your comfort zone, whilst “Human Compression” see the band delve into an almost desert-rock sound with hazy, unrelenting guitar work supporting Rees’s lyrics about the pressure he puts on himself. The psychedelic glam-tinged “Night Of The Skinwalker” – a song which centres around his struggles with self-doubt- marks the albums opus, melding a number of styles and genres across almost six minutes.