I don’t know that it’s a real “secret” that Minneapolis-Saint Paul is home to many excellent bands from across the extreme music spectrum, but it does feel underrated, or at least under-discussed to me. For the heaps of praise New York, Denver, and Chicago seem to pull in for their extreme music acumen, it feels like I’m always chiming in about MPLS this, MPLS that (sorry Heavy Blog Discorders), to the point where I’m becoming painfully aware how annoying I may be. This said, I’m always being blown away by a new band from the cities: Sunless, Wanderer, Obsequiae, Tulip, New Primals, Ashbringer, Birth Order, Nothingness, Eudaemon—just to name a few. Now it appears as though Shrive, the latest from the land of Soul Asylum, Cows, and Husker Dü has its grip on me. It should come as no surprise since this group features nothin’ but members from some of my favorite MPLS bands, Morality Crisis, Nerves (RIP), and Kaldeket, but I’m nonetheless wowed and thus absolutely fucking psyched to offer you “Comfortable Haze” off their upcoming debut, Leach.
It’s an understatement to say I’ve spent a lot of time with this track, but there’s something to the layering and progression here that absolutely fucking tickles me. Engineered, mixed, and mastered by Adam Tucker at Signaturetone, I appreciate that there’s real attention paid to the dynamics Shrive explore both instrumentally and vocally. They kick things off with a tom-rollin’ groove that locks you in immediately, then sneakily shifts into this Young Widows-y sort of space that’s curiously dark and tension-laden. Over its six-plus minutes, “Comfortable Haze” appropriately leaves me pleasantly disoriented as it unfurls: krautrock roots blossoming into an art-sludgy—and I don’t offer this comparison lightly—SUMAC-y amalgam of psych, noise rock, and prog that’s ruminative, visceral, and wholly immersive. All the while, there’s some real sonic slight-of-hand shit going on in this track where each part of the track kind of bleeds into another. What happened to that rhythm? Where'd this creepiness come from? How many vocalists are in this band? I’m still taken by surprise when that final progression starts to build. It's like a roller coaster for those with an avant- appetite, and I'm glad there's no line.
Do the Objectively Correct and Right Thing and pre-order Shrive's Leach on their Bandcamp ahead of its May 2 release, and keep your eyes peeled for a cassette to come later this year from Negative Wingspan.