By: Rich Buley
Weird. | facebook | twitter | bandcamp | soundcloud |
Released on March 2, 2015 via Bandcamp
In a continuous exploration of artists and bands posting self-tagged shoegaze and psych on the internet, three things become abundantly clear, quite quickly;
1) Most of it isn’t remotely either, or at least what I understand shoegaze and psych to be.
2) As the importance of (allegedly) discerning A&R scouts continues to diminish in the digital age, the quantity of available new music is absolutely staggering.
3) When you do discover something special, among the brilliantly unrestricted yet utterly bewildering landscape of The Web, it makes the treasure unearthed extra shiny and personally so valuable. It actually does feel a little bit similar to spending countless, fruitless hours in record stores looking for (insert name of obscure yet superb early 90’s indie band here)’s debut 7 inch single, only to find it for 29p in Woolworths’ bargain bin as you despairingly browse, before loading up on Pick ‘n’ Mix for the bus journey home. Or maybe it feels like attempting unsuccessfully to get served and/or pull at one’s local nightclub, to a harrowing soundtrack of ‘chart music’, and suddenly being greeted by the opening sequence of ‘Leave Them All Behind’, which had crashed straight in at number nine the previous week and had thus ended up in the hapless DJ’s record box.
Well, I am pleased to say that Rome based three piece Weird. (yes, that is a full stop after their name, and not a full stop to end what would have been a thoroughly unconvincing sentence. It’s no good just having a Weird name these days- you have to do things to it) and their second album A Long Period Of Blindness qualifies unreservedly as a buried gem in the 2015 equivalent of the bargain bin at Woolworths; ‘Name Your Price’ Bandcamp, and would certainly see me rush to that now deserted dancefloor for its gleaming shards of distorted guitar.
What makes this an exceptional record is Weird.’s ability to expertly marry the spiky, edgy guitars of modern, (I guess you would say) mainstream psych with enormous washes of reverb and sombre, introspective vocals. The result is a dark, thoroughly enticing beauty which pulls you in and smothers you slowly in windswept, gothic splendour.
The handsomely named ‘The Circle Is Closed Except Where It Bleeds’ kicks things off with a jagged, slender riff, before the rhythm section explodes into life, and we are presented with a sweeping, fuzz-filled opener, before ‘Dead Wax’ chimes away and displays the calmer, reflective side to the band, with a haunting guitar line and Marco Barzetti’s stirring vocal to the fore, although both are temporarily submerged by deluges of crystalline distortion.
‘Infinite Decay’ begins and ends in urgent, boisterous fashion, but in between is a deliciously mournful slice of quintessential shoegaze, while ‘The Sound Of Your Heartbreak’ brilliantly delivers on its promise, as dramatic, elegiac chords swoop and soar all around Barzetti as he recounts another tale of lost love, before the band build to a sonically life-affirming crescendo.
After such a majestic start, it is honest to say that a little bit of excitement and energy comes out of the record with the poignant but ultimately directionless ‘Widow’ and the slightly underwhelming ‘(Crescendo)’. However, things move up through the gears again with the perhaps knowingly named ‘Gaze’, with a sound which instantly brings Slowdive to mind, and delivers the kind of spine-tingling, effects laden sparkle that many seek but very few find.
The seven minute ‘Swans’ takes matters to a satisfyingly gloomy and turbulent conclusion, with Barzetti asking “why do I drown?” as the band simmer and boil around him.
Weird.’s music and lyrics appear born out of loss, of hopelessness and pain, and very rarely have those things come together to sound so beautifully desolate. They have delivered an album of resonating, psychedelically tinged shoegaze that is possessed of a dark and melancholic heart, the like of which usually makes for a thoroughly compelling aural experience, and it certainly has here.
