Death is Not the End usually delivers up quality, but I feel like I'm missing a joke here. Henry Caravan is Louis Johnstone (??) is Wanda Group (????) who seems to have recorded this album alone in a room somewhere (I'm picturing a desolate cabin in winter). There's a lot of aimless fingerpicking experimentation that's so angular it sounds like a more purposeless Derek Bailey, and any time it threatens to get interesting Henry steps up to the mic and sings with a voice that indicates he's afflicted with a monstrous head cold, replete with sniffing and snuffing and heavy breathing throughout the tracks. Imagine your co-worker in the cubicle next to you annoying the shit out of you with their cold, and then having them mumblesing into your ear with their mucus and hot breath. Certainly no pleasure to listen to unless, like I said, I'm missing a joke? Either way....no thanks.
I keep up with Sunburned only intermittently these days, they seem to be taking a more rock-ist approach lately. Like this one. Each track is about 4-5 minutes of pretty ramshackle, jammy, funky, boogie rock...almost spoiled by the throaty, beery vocals shouted over the top of each one of these tunes with nonsensical platitudes. I almost shut it off after a couple tracks but I stuck it out and kinda came around on some level. I was oddly reminded of My War era Black Flag sludge punk. The band sez "these Holy Grail fueled recordings are a mix of iphone and zoom recordings run through garageband, reaper and some plug-ins. We're still working on the much more listener-friendly Black Dirt session..." and point taken, listener friendly this ain't.
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