Heartbreaking Bravery

stevenmps2@gmail.com | @steven_mps | @hbreakbravery

Tag: Weight

May 13, 2016

Lady Bones – Terse (EP Review)

Lady Bones II

Editor’s Note: There’s been a month-long gap in coverage, thanks to near-incessant travel and other extenuating circumstances. The following run of posts that contain this note will be posts that should have appeared sometime within the past several weeks. Use these posts as an opportunity to catch up to the present release cycle or to simply discover some new music. Either way, enjoy.

A lot of words have been printed on this site that focus on Lady Bones and a large reason for that attention can be attributed to the band’s continuing improvement. Even from the onset, the band was releasing music that stood out (and it stood out for all the right reasons). Throughout the past few years, they’ve grown more assured in their own identity and have sharpened their dynamics considerably.

By committing more fiercely to their menacing aggression and penchant for discordant noise while retaining their more melodic sensibilities, they’ve carved out a space for themselves in a scene that’s overflowing with tremendous acts (a handful of which share many of the trio’s tastes in composition and approach). Terse, Lady Bones’ latest EP, is their strongest effort by a noticeable margin.

The EP’s opening two tracks, “Weight” and “Ice Cream“, have already been granted write-ups on this site and set a very high bar for the EP’s ensuing trio of tracks. “Horror”, “Age”, and “Don’t Call Me Sassy” all live up to that formidable challenge. A few of them even manage to surprise with a few of their choices with “Horror”, especially, demonstrating the band’s growth as a unit. By the time the frenetic attack of “Don’t Call Me Sassy” fades into the ether, Terse stands confidently as not just one of the band’s proudest moments but as one of the most formidable releases of the first half of 2016.    

Listen to Terse below and pick the cassette up from Midnight Werewolf here.

1 Comment
April 11, 2016

Lady Bones – Weight (Stream)

Lady Bones II

Continuing on with the impressive slate of notable songs that have come out since the start of April, the focus falls — as it has so many times on this site in the past — on Lady Bones. Before turning the attention towards their outstanding “Weight”, it’s worth casting a look over at great new songs from Lost Boy ?, Melkbelly, Pumarosa, Henry Chadwick, Ali Beletic, Honey Radar, Stone Cold Fox, King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard, FIR, and Keroscene. While those 10 songs were all more than worthwhile, it was Lady Bones’ “Weight” to snag this post’s feature spot.

Last year’s excellent Dying saw the trio continuing to hone their own take on the grunge-meets-post-punk-filtered-through-noise-punk-trappings sound that has become a calling card for many Boston-area bands. Dying saw the band continue to scale back some of the more pop-leaning aspects that populated their split with Horsehands, to considerable effect. “Weight”, once again, finds the band diminishing their more pop-skewing sensibilities in favor of something much more aggressive. Again, it’s a move that pays dividends for the band.

Now, to be abundantly clear, the band hasn’t sacrificed their keen melodic sense, they’ve just inverted it into something that comes across in a much more emphatic manner. On “Weight” they continue to go for their listener’s throats, conjuring up a bruising number that benefits from their murky tones, never quite becoming a sludge song but playing with some of the genre’s more interesting aesthetics. They’ve settled into a confident rhythm and have found what works most effectively for their songwriting and “Weight” is exhilarating proof.

Listen to “Weight” below and pre-order Terse from Midnight Werewolf here.

2 Comments