Florida BC/Dead Quiet
Florida BC
Salt Breaker Sand // Medicine Records
There’s a certain sound and feeling in the music that I’ve been gravitating towards lately... well... maybe forever actually. It’s a dark, rolling, heaving sound, swampy in its origins, bluesy in its bedroom, light in its shadows, psychedelic in its undertones, but always roaring, even if it’s sometimes softly. The first time I heard “Thunder Jesus” by Florida BC, my chest heaved and I said “Yep, that’s it”. Expecting something a little more grandiose in my verbiage? Well, my friend, to me a crooked smile and a quiet “Yeah...that’s real good” is the sound of being musically satisfied. Florida BC and their debut album Salt Breaker Sand, released September 4th via Medicine Records, is Clinton St. John’s latest musical project with fellow Calgary-based band members Jeff Macleod, Carl Davison, and Morgan Greenwood. Recorded in Montreal at Scott Munro’s Jurassic Park Studios, with accompanying instrumentals from fellow Preoccupations band members Matt Flegel and Danny Christensen, Salt Breaker Sand is a dark, richly complex album of intensely talented musicianship. Clinton St. John (formerly of The Cape May) has a way of weaving intricate storytelling into anthemic gritty folk, bluesy soundscapes. With the darker, harder influences of the Preoccupations crew, Salt Breaker Sand is the apocalyptic folk/rock/chest-heaving-rolling-drum-lines-and-dirty-guitar my heart has been craving.
The first track of the album “Thunder Jesus”, said to be partially inspired by Twin Peaks, tackles the topic of missing and murdered indigenous women. The grim and impossibly haunting circumstances of countless women is played out and thundered through fuzzy guitars and swampy bass lines. Followed up by a re-worked cover of Tom Waits’ “Blow Wind Blow” keeps us in a low, pulsating trance. A short, moody instrumental gives us a contemplative pause and then we are sprung into “Cults”, a song about a pseudo-guru, sleazy cult-leader who St. John and his band encountered while touring with The Cape May in the States. “I’m a hobo. I’m a god. I’m a little speck of dirt.” Maybe we are all a little bit cult-leader-esque at times.
The track “Salt Breaker Sand” is a melodic serenade into melancholy but “One Two and Three Eyes” rolls its drums back into our swaying bodies. “Panel Visions” gives us a light breath of fresh air with its dark-haloed piano meanderings. A pretty little musical interlude to cleanse our palette before we are punched in the face with “Master & Council”, a middle finger to the current shit-show of American politics. Oh, it starts off soft all right, with the glimpse of perhaps leaving us from this journey with an introspective track to bring us down gently. Nope. We are thrown into a mosh-pit of disgust and anger. That’s what life is. It’s light and it’s calm, and it’s hard and it’s dark. We go up and we go down but we should always be feeling. Yep... this album is real good.
- Mo Lawrance
Dead Quiet
Truth and Ruin // Artoffact Records
Vancouver's Dead Quiet have been slaying stoner rock for years. Truth and Ruin, their third full length, finds the now quintet confidently charging ahead. This album will expand the band's existing fanbase. Doing my part, I've been rocking it at my socially distanced garage hangs. With consistency and persistence, Truth and Ruin can blast us past a forgettable 2020.
Somehow, this isn't quite a Stoner Metal Album. Never fear, there is no shortage of guitar slaying. However, addition of organs adds a smoothing sonic layer. Seven tracks give sufficient variety in order to not fall into that stoner trap. That being said, "Cold Dead Heart" will peel your ears back. The entire album is wonderfully riff laden with tasteful interludes. The boys are giving us reason to remember what rock is good for. Banging heads and pumping fists. It is the escape and release we crave. " If you come to my house, you better let your hair down!" Dammit!… I'm shotgunning a beer.
I've been a fan of Kevin Keegan's showmanship, delivery, and projection since his days in the hesher stalwarts Barn Burner. While that band might have burned hot and short, Truth and Ruin gives hope that we will hear more from these formidable rockers. Dead Quiet will help us blast through 2020.
- Drew Cox
