Weak Signal has come roaring back into our lives with the smoldering War and War.
Available today on their Bandcamp page, this album finds Weak Signal at perhaps their grittiest. The guitars on this album rumble and snarl with the deepest and darkest fuzz imaginable while the drums and bass thump deeply with the gravity of a death knell. With the aid of Sarim Al-Rawi and Cass McCombs on guitar and Ryan Sawyer on percussion, the power trio of Mike Bones, Tran and Sasha Vine generate a grim atmosphere that never lets up.
The record is mostly built out of grungy post-punk songs. The majority of these tracks chug along at a creeping pace, yet they still feature enough standard pop ingredients that you’ll find yourself nodding and singing along with them rather easily. This is especially true for the gothic shoegaze gem that is “Spooky Feeling,” which has the catchy chorus and addictive riffs you’d expect from an early ’90s alternative hit single.
One of the songs that breaks out of this mould however, is the instrumental title track. Both the record and the song are named after a novel by László Krasznahorkai about a Hungarian man who discovers new meaning in his life when he comes across a cryptic war-themed manuscript that he is compelled to translate and publish online. With percussion that rattles and pops like stray ammunition fire and guitars that thunder and whine with feedback, the track is a ghostly improv piece that is as mysterious and austere as the novel’s bleakly enigmatic title.
If The Jesus and Mary Chain’s Psychocandy and albums by Death in June and Dead Sea Apes are some of the most played records in your collection, you ought to check War & War out right away. Click here to get your digital copy now.
-KH
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Record Crates United 