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Saturday, April 23, 2016

Brick Road by Accept Us is.... "a beautiful lo-fi mess with glimmers of brilliance" and Straight Out Of Reston, Virginia

Accept Us out of Reston, Virginia has something to say on their latest sound foray entitled "Brick Road" but it can be hard to decipher. A lot of the tracks sound like just fucking around and tossing sonic ideas in the air. At least that is what I imagined as I listened to the 6 tracks.

I could be totally wrong and their are some truly evocative stuff here. Some beautiful wonky moments of tone and texture buried in the murky low-fi sounds. In Figure Out the Length Of Things the drums fall in and out of tempo alot resulting in this kind of slow mo sway of a song. The drums act like a hazy dreamy narcotic that pulls you into the circular guitar lines. I must say that as much as I wanted to shut this song off in the beginning, the strangely inducing tone kept me on and kept me going back to this song a lot. Get Angle On Things is basically built on two power chords (that shift to two more chords on occasion) and the words at one point say "a beautiful lethargy" which I guess distills this song into it's essence.

And so it goes with much on this album. Lo-fi sounds that feel not that flushed out but just might be (?). It is hard to say. Sizing Up The Situation sounds like a rough demo but it is here in all its embryonic glory.  The last track, Waste is the most shoe gazey static filled track with a cool bass line that in the end give this song a sense of romance really.  Maybe the most interesting thing about Brick Road is finding these pretty amazing passages of sound within the abrasive noise folk tones. In Explain (Like A Man) there are beautiful acoustic undertones and melodies in the section between 1:19 and 1:58. The feeling is sad, celebratory and inspired.... and so very cool. I wanted that musical passage to last like 2 minutes more and build.  I guess for me, personally, there are glimmers of brilliance to be found in a lot of Brick Road but you have to be willing to dive into the static and noise to find them.

Does this sound like a lukewarm recommendation?  I don't know. People send me stuff and I do my best to bring it to you all if it has something interesting. Sounds that excite me in some way. Some of what I hear by Accept Us feels rough and ad lib and some like flushed out blends of alternative folk, psych rock and shoe gaze. Some of it sounds like a mess and some of it is so mysteriously beautiful. I just want to know what these boys are smoking.
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Robb Donker

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