Animal Omen – “Susan” (audio) (premiere)

At first Vancouver band Animal Omen sounds cut from the same retro heavy rock as Black Mountain from the same city, relying on lugubrious tempos and roaring, fuzzed-out guitar riffs and melodies, save for one major difference. While Black Mountain’s psychedelic influence keeps their music at an arm’s length from the audience, Animal Omen head straight in the opposite direction, injecting genuine soul into the music. No detachment, just emotion, but in a tasteful way: there’s no cock rock swagger, nor any post-millennial whining. Debut single “Susan” is just a gorgeous song about a girl, played and sung with complete sincerity, displaying a level of tenderness that quite frankly is missing in modern rock.

“‘Black-eyed Susan’ seems to have escaped from some damp and dark place,” the band says. “Oodles of space and a mellow tempo allow the desperate lyrics to be made clear and the airy melodies to reverberate. Fictitious or not, ‘Black-eyed Susan’ is certainly melancholy, but she’s still fuzzy and warm and very relatable.”

Animal Omen’s debut EP Feral Moans will be released August 21.