Friday, October 16, 2015

Spray Paint : Punters On A Barge




Spray Paint's newest album 'Punters on the Barge' (Homeless Records) sees the Austin three-piece delve further into a stormy vortex of industrial dysfunction.  10 new songs explore minimal, angular guitars and metronomic rhythms forging a stark album aptly reflected in the numbed vocal delivery.  Instinctively led twanged and twitched gestures from both guitars punctuate the songs amplifying the anxiety Spray Paint typify.  One stand out element throughout 'Punters On The Barge' is how the guitars toll or ring out in a summoning motion adding a whole new creepy dimension to the songs.  The use of a drum machine isn’t something I think I’ve heard on their previous releases; it’s a great component that recalls 80’s death rock and/or post punk of the same era.  “Day of the Rope” not only employs a drum machine but some synthesized glitches as well .   “Middle Relief” is great too in how slurred, plaintive and menacing the whole thing plays out to be, low rolling tones juxtaposed with tense top end notes alongside big thundery drums fittingly round off the album with apocalyptic aplomb.  It's a sense of paranoia and abandonment that best sum up Spray Paint's approach, locked in a perpetual groove, building pressure that never lets up.  They resolutely confine themselves to this one state creating a passage for bleak explorations of extreme agitation.  Spray Paint has a definite structure when it comes to assembling their songs, and within these boundaries they push and draw from those constraints to bring us something even more unsettling, I can’t wait to see how far they’re willing to go next time.

You can have a listen HERE

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