BAND OF THE WEEK: Gauze Trail
Based on a grand total of one song.
Do you know Gauze Trail? Don’t worry, because I don’t either. But this is the sort of thing that happens when you’re into the work of awesome people. They tend to work with other awesome people, and if you’re paying attention to those connections, your own network of awesome is exponentially enlarged too. The origin of this discovery was none other than the great Steve Austin from Today Is The Day, one of my favourite musicians (I’ve had the immense honour of having him as a guest on the podcast a couple of years ago, in one of my favourite episodes). Steve mentioned this trio from Connecticut on a post that he shared both on his personal and SuperNova Records’ social media pages a few days ago, warning us that a new single, the first off their forthcoming debut album, was coming out that weekend. And when Steve recommends a band, especially a band that he recorded himself, and especially if the accompanying photo features a cute dog and people in Drive Like Jehu and Godflesh t-shirts, I will stop whatever it is I’m doing and go listen to the damn thing. And once again, it turned out to be a wonderful decision. That single, the one song available so far from these guys, is called ‘Unrest’, and the forthcoming album will be called ‘A Moment Worth A Life’. Before I wax lyrical about it, please dive in:
Fucking great, isn’t it? In Steve’s own words, “Tucker Spellane's guitar work on this is absolutely wild. The drumming on this thing is truly epic. All this rounded out by ghostly, haunting vocals by singer Mackie,” and yeah, that’s all true, not just a proud producer gushing about his latest job. My favourite part is when Mackie’s vocals kick in at 1:25 - up until then, it seems like a sort of rough, fairly brutal kind of noise rock thing, but her vocals completely change the whole mood of the song from then on. It’s still ferocious, but it also becomes, well, ethereal? I know I’m only using that description because they call themselves “ethereal noisecore”, but what the hell, if it fits, I uses it. Some of the tags employed on that Bandcamp page, such as “blackened grind”, “mathcore”, “shoegaze” or “slowcore” also make me damn curious for what the rest of the album has to offer.
Yeah, no, I don’t have a promo this time, and I haven’t heard it all a million weeks before release date, for once. Right now, we’re on absolutely equal terms - that one song, playing over and over and over. I don’t like this feeling, but it is the mark of a great song. Hope the others will be up to the standard. Be sure to follow these guys on the links below, because they’re the sort of band that is hell to google for, you keep getting fucking medical supplies instead of that sweet ethereal noisecore you’re craving for.
Thanks once again for a great tip, Steve!
You can find Gauze Trail on Bandcamp and Instagram.