Eddy Current Suppression Ring Rush To Relax (Melodic)
4/5
By: Jen Long
Rush to Relax is the third album from Melbourne’s Eddy Current Suppression Ring. Though only just released here, it’s been around for a little while; I remember downloading it a few months back and giving it a couple of background plays, wandering about to its garage rock slug. It wasn’t until I got asked to write this review that I properly listened to this record though, and discovered that below the sliced guitars and grounding shift-up drums is an album full of heart and sentiment.
Lead singer Brendan Suppression’s lyrics and vocal are what really lifts this record above some average pounding guitars nodding for the nostalgic. ‘Anxiety’ and ‘Walked Into A Corner’ show an unsure side to the singer, ‘Gentleman’ keeps the right side of the sweetly written love song, and ‘Tuning Out’ is just an honest tale of what’s it’s really like to be in a relationship.
Brendan’s delivery is unique as well, always a good trait for a lead singer. At times he sounds a bit 1990s, at times a bit Art Brut, but it’s still distinctively him. It’s that part speaking part singing style, but here it works in the band’s favour showcasing lyrics like “I don’t care if you’ve blown a fuse, or if you’ve made the front page news/I don’t care if you’re confused I’m tuning out I’m tuning out I’m tuning out.”
Under the self-effacing and utterly endearing lyrics, under the pulling dashes of guitar riff, lies the ever-changing pulse of this record - the drums never stop. They’re always there driving the songs, but more so, they’re always changing; a fill here, a break there. Cymbals, snare rolls, it keeps the songs burning through.
It also sounds like a lot of the instrumentation has been brought to the front of the mix. The vocals sometimes sound like they’re caged behind the main riff, or even a crash of cymbal, but it totally works. In fact, it might be what keeps Brendan’s singing style from becoming overbearing. Instead of having some guy shouting at you, you’ve got four guys blasting out your headphones and it just sounds great.
There’s just so much variation on this record, from under sixty-second purges of garage speed to a lengthy nineteen-minute outro mostly comprised of the sound of the sea. Whether this album will achieve the success of 2008’s Primary Colours (not the Horrors’ record) we’ll have to wait and see, but from a few close up listens, I think it really deserves to.
Artists in this article: Eddy Current Suppression Ring
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