The band: Living Hour.
Vocalist-lyricist/multi-instrumentalist Sam Sarty, guitarist Gil Carroll, guitarist/vocalist Adam Soloway, bassist/keyboardist Brett Ticzon, and drummer Isaac Tate
The album: Internal Drone Infinity
I was ambushed!! What started as Trent Reznor went on to become Radiohead meets Billie Eilish, and then the foundation of the music, which is based in rock, reveals itself in all its glory. “fuzzy indie-pop, and dreamy noise rock” (taken from their website) are great ways to describe it. I would say it is modern indie pop/rock. Still, someone, somewhere, during the production/mixing/mastering process, decided to bathe the whole thing in fuzz, saturation, distortion, and all kinds of beautiful noise elements. Also, as a drummer myself, I’m wondering if that is a very noisy sizzle ride in there, or if they just put some fuzz on the overhead mics?
I am not saying there are no subtleties and calm—quieter, more introspective moments—because one can find them in this album. Some Nirvana, Alice in Chains kind of semi-country inspired song building, like a bastard child of Aerosmith and Audioslave.
Again, I keep stressing that these are the references of a ’90s kid. I am sure there are more recent bands to find similarities with, but a song like ‘Best I did it’ — my oh my — could that be The Smashing Pumpkins with Alanis Morissette! Anyway, I hope you are getting where I am going with this.
The most important thing I want to mention is that the contrast between the noisy-sounding instrumentation and the many times fragile, semi-broken, lament-style vocals is wonderful and probably what I love the most about this style of music served by Living Hour.
There are, of course, other sides to this album, making it a powerful and diverse one. There are ballads and hypnotic slow parts, other uptempo moments that are almost punk, but never in a “punk” way or context, and the whole vibe is that of a classic vinyl with an A side and a B side. In this case, the B side is where things slow down and become like a soundtrack to an indie film, with not much talking. Still, the characters are very well written, and there is a lot of emotion to go around. It all creates a world in my head where I am quite high and maybe also hallucinating just a bit. Side A is all the raw power that you can get from this band in terms of volume and intensity, but both sides make for a very well-balanced album!
Written by Spiros Maus
