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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