Black River Manifesto - Kingmaker Album
Info: Brookly-based alternative punk-rock trio Black River Manifesto, comprised of Derry native and founder Aodhán O'Reilly, upright bass-player Jeonglim Yang and Gabe Katz on drums have just released their new album, Kingmaker, this week. Recorded and mixed at The Outlier Inn by Joshua Druckman, the album is currently getting the live treatment as BRM make their away across the U.S. on an 11 date tour.
The band have correctly tagged their music as a mix of surf rock and punk, the entirely instrumental recording bounces back and forth between 60's garage and modern anarchic punk sounds with experimental classical leanings every now and again. The album opens with a quote from Shakespeare's MacBeth before catapulting you straight into the Dick Dale riffs and percussion of the stomping title-track with its dark industrial mood, a slick and promising beginning.
Black River Manifesto - Kingmaker (track)
The suave sophistication of Black River Manifesto's sound continues on third track 'Hagler', a shuddering whammy bar guitar intro builds up to a cacophony of greasy fuzz from the trio as they approach their stride. A brief interlude on the wonderful if short 'Arco Bunny' brings respite, not that you're seeking it, the droning strings of the upright-bass painting a bleak, desolate and slightly sinister landscape, it's beautifully imaginative. So we come to 'Mata Hari', a key track on the album for me, and a definite favourite, this is the sort of contemporary anarchy I enjoyed so much on The White Stripes and Black Rebel Motorcycle Club's early albums, it's bleak yet oozes cool and sounds almost nonchalant in its execution.
'Motor City' starts out all old school surf rock before spiralling out of control into a mish-mash of screeching solos and plodding bass-lines and drums, there's a small hint of blues here á la Clapton too. One thing the band manage to do quite well is invert their sound across the album, going from distorted chaos to clean numbers like 'King Black' and the final track, 'Pelo Negro' an homage to Bill Withers perhaps? Interestingly Clapton is back under the guise of Cream, on the somewhat unsurprisingly titled 'Hitman Blues', an incessant rock out session where BRM have you in their sights and refuse to drop their stare.
Kingmaker is a wonderful modern take on what used to be a pretty underground sound back in its heyday, the experimentation on the tracks is delightful and yet sounds so effortless, almost throwaway and indifferent and I think this is what makes the album so good, a cool and easy to enjoy listen from open to close, the soundtrack to a Sons of Anarchy episode directed by Tarantino!
You can now purchase Kingmaker on digital download or CD here http://blackrivermanifesto.bandcamp.com/
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Bandcamp: http://blackrivermanifesto.bandcamp.com/
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