Sprouting from the soil of a five-year germination process, the talented two-piece Floral have returned with a new single from their upcoming debut full length Floral LP. With two highly acclaimed EP’s in their catalogue to date, the math rock duo has had fans waiting feverishly for more and this Friday that wait finally comes to an end. To hold you over until then, Heavy Blog is proud to present you their appropriately titled second single “The Good Song”. While I’m sure the rest of the album are also good songs, this does the title justice.
Part of the reason the instrumental duo took so long to deliver new material was due to one of the members moving across the country. The guitar and drummer combo had to adapt to writing long-distance. Guitarist Nate Sherman expressed the following about this process: “Having lived together and written all of our previous material in the same room, it was a very slow and organic process of learning how to write and continue developing this project given the distance. It wasn’t until the end of writing the Floral LP that we were fully comfortable with that process.” I can firmly attest that this process paid off, as “The Good Song” delivers some of their most chaotically fun material to date.
While some of these hyper-clean tone instrumental math rock groups can at times focus in too much on that chaos and technicality, Floral match it with equally impressive song-writing chops to create truly memorable instrumental music. No riff lingers too long, and they flow well across the enigmatic song structures. While a staple of the more virtuosic take at this genre, this track has one of the coolest guitar-tapping parts I’ve heard in some time. Not just serving to sound impressive, it carries a surprising amount of emotional resonance as a crescendo that builds back into the main riff. The whole piece is carefully calculated yet comes across cheerfully colourful and organic.
Quality production from Jack Shirley (Deafheaven, Jeff Rosenstock, etc.) ties everything together nicely, matching the energy of their live shows. Their crisp and clean approach allows the technicality and drum flourishes to shine bright.
Stream “The Good Song” below, and catch them on tour in the Southwest US this month with their mathy friends in Standards. The Floral LP drops this Friday, Feb. 15th, with vinyl available through Choke Artist.