Back in March, I raved about Bleak Streak’s second album Peak Bleak, a delightfully DIY record about the lowest lows of life. You know what else can get pretty low? The bottom of a crater. Maybe that crater’s in a forest. Maybe it’s in your heart.
Hence the Stockholm lo-fi punk powerhouse’s new single, “Forest Crater”. Giving off major Verlaines vibes, the track’s blistering beat sits under a thick layer of aural muck, making everything sound awash in the beautiful muffling waves of cassette-tape saturation. The roaring guitar smashes against the high-frequency shelf, but along with the bass and drums, it takes on this warmth that seeps into my skin, like the sun’s rays through the treetops of the woods near my house. I enjoy Bleak Streak’s ability to craft a rich soundscape that feels so raw, especially with their sparse arrangement.
Lars Harefjord sings of terrible love and loss on this new track, using vivid imagery and a line from an old high school teacher to introduce it: “You have seen me angry / I’ve wiped up your puke”. (Allegedly, the teacher said “True love is wiping your sweetheart’s puke off the floor.” Can confirm.) Through expressing the strength of the passion at the start, Östborg is able to articulate the pain of its waning. Sometimes the end of a relationship hits you fast, like stumbling into a crater in the middle of an otherwise-beautiful forest, snapping your ankle, and screaming for help when there’s none for miles around.
And while you can always heal from an injury like that, when it happens, you just have to lay there catatonic for a while and think about your whole life. For the last thirty seconds of “Forest Crater”, we get a beautiful symphony of guitar and speaker feedback droning into our ears. I don’t know about you, but that’s how my head sounds when I’m nursing a serious blow to the spirit. Once again, Bleak Streak showcase their mastery in painting musical images of true dreariness.
Take a listen to “Forest Crater” below.
Written by Will Sisskind
