Sometimes the modern world gets so loud and overwhelming that the only logical response is to drown it out with even louder music. There is a strange, paradoxical comfort in a wall of distorted sound. It wraps around you and blocks out every anxious thought rattling around in your brain. Bristol-based Gumdrop leans heavily into this philosophy on their latest single “germinate”, and they are absolutely not messing around. Right from the jump, that bass line grabs you by the throat.
It sets this dark, hypnotic groove that carries the whole track. Then you hit the chorus, and it feels like a trance you are totally fine being stuck in. The way they pace the songwriting is gorgeous, drifting through different moods without losing steam. They channel the chaotic brilliance of My Bloody Valentine mixed with the raw, sneering punk edge of Sonic Youth. For a crew that calls themselves a noise band, this music feels way too alive to just be noise. It is a brilliant, messy wall of sound.
While the bones of the track are rock solid, a couple of mixing tweaks could make it lethal. First up, that cymbal hitting in the left ear is a little too loud and harsh. It gets distracting after a while. I would also love to hear the atmospheric synth pads pushed harder in the mix to really nail that shoegaze aesthetic. Lastly, the whole instrumental bed feels a bit crammed into the middle. Panning the guitars and synths out wider would carve out a massive pocket of space. Doing that gives the lead vocals room to really slice through the noise. A few quick tweaks, and this single would be completely unstoppable.
Written by Oluwaseun Adeyemi
