"I can help you / I don’t think you understand / I’ve got all day / to sit around and hold your hand..."
The stabbing alt punk assertions of "Alright Go" by Bristol, UK's captivating Heavy Feelings invades my head with subversive, angular guitar attacks, brilliant tonal shifts, saturated in angst and artful confusion. And quite frankly, it sounds just so radical, so bad ass. I actually hate to revert to saying a song sounds bad ass but this certainly does. I love the constructions, the feral drumming and songwriter singer Nadia Garofalo's magnetic vocal countenance. Her edgy performance, her snarl and measured bits of aloof entangled tones and dismissive power plays and double fisted punches has me feeling (attitudinally) an amalgam of artists like of Debora Kay Iyall (Romeo Void), Chrissie Hynde (The Pretenders), PJ Harvey and Kim Gordon (Sonic Youth).
"It’s not your fault
It’s just the way that it goes
swallow your feelings they get caught in your throat
It’s not your fault
It’s just the way that it goes
choke on your feelings
they get caught in your throat"
LINER NOTES (bracketed):
[After taking the summer to focus on other projects, Heavy Feelings return with their second EP of 2024. Building on the sonics of that self-titled release, the ‘Anatomy EP’ fuses post-punk, goth-rock, trip-hop and no-wave over its four timely and zeitgeist-defining tracks.]
Of the new EP, singer Nadia Garofalo says:
“While writing I was thinking a lot about feelings of not belonging, feeling like an extra limb in your own life. That can be so hard to contend with, but it could also be transformative, if you let it. I loved working with these songs, this project has really become a long-distance communication art piece. We have our different lives and time zones and yet manage to effectively collaborate and inform each other's process from a distance.”
[The EP was recorded in Chicago (Altered States) and Bristol (guitarist Ben’s house) and mixed at Axe & Trap Studios in Somerset by Ben Scott Turner (Part Chimp, Hey Colossus, Holy Scum, Wolfer). Drummer Rob Ellis (PJ Harvey, Anna Calvi, Bat For Lashes, Torres) contributes to ‘Alright Go’ and ‘Conveyor’. Finally it was mastered by Shawn Joseph at Optimum Mastering.]
The core duo are:
Nadia Garofalo - vocals, synth
Ben Shillabeer – bass, bass vi, guitars, programming, synths
with Ben Scott Turner – drums, percussion
Ben Shillabeer – bass, bass vi, guitars, programming, synths
with Ben Scott Turner – drums, percussion
Dipping into the ‘Anatomy EP’ and I can tell you that it absolutely kills. Apart from the stunning "Alright Go", the whole EP draws you in all the way, from the darkly romantic, cagey rhythms, twisted stomach ache vastness of "Design Flaws" to the punk rager diatribal powerhouse of "Breather" to the gothic melancholy baroque post punk shape shifting dreaminess of "Conveyor", wow, wow, wow.
-Robb Donker Curtius
THE FACTS AS WE KNOW THEM
https://soundcloud.com/heavyfeelingsmusic
https://heavyfeelings.bandcamp.com/album/anatomy-ep
https://www.instagram.com/heav_yfeelings/
https://amazingradio.com/profile/heavyfeelings
Post-Punk Duo based in Bristol & Chicago. Self-titled EP - March 2024, Anatomy EP - December 2024.
Heavy Feelings, alt rock, post punk, gothic punk, baroque punk, hard rock, songwriter / singer / synth Nadia Garofalo, Ben Shillabeer - bass/ guitars, programming, synths, "Anatomy EP",
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