bruised-reed-storm-is-coming

The Bruised Reed – “The Storm Is Coming” / “Emptiest Noise” (premiere)

Detroit duo releases latest installment of slowcore-fuzzrock series.

Melding slowcore and dream pop with a distinctly ’90s veneer of grungy fuzz-rock is the modus operandi of married Detroit duo the Bruised Reed. Over the last few years, vocalist Kirsten Wheeler and instrumentalist Josh Wheeler have honed their approach, consciously demarcating their ramshackle grit from their more ethereal predilections. To this end, they’ve intermittently released two songs at a time in a series dubbed Doubles, always with each tune indebted to either sonic template.

The fourth installment in the series finds “The Storm Is Coming” paired with “Emptiest Noise”, the former urgent and ragged, the latter plaintive and subtler. “The Storm Is Coming” chugs with a marble cake mixture of electric and acoustic guitars, as ominous as thunderheads rolling in over a desert expanse. Its chorus has the feel of breaking free from fettering situation. “Emptiest Noise”, by contrast, is hauntingly sparse. With sweeping guitar lines and skittering programmed beats, the subdued instrumentation and negative space around Kirsten’s voice impart the song with an aching resonance and mournful vulnerability.

Doubles Vol. 4, along with the prior three volumes, are available to be downloaded and streamed on Bandcamp, Soundcloud, and Spotify.

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