Haybaby are a noisy grunge band from Brooklyn led by Leslie Hong. Following up their début full-length, Sleepy Kids, which came out on Tiny Engines last year, Blood Harvest finds the trio further along the same path, pushing their already distinctive sound further into something uniquely Haybaby.
The release opens with ‘Stupid’, a song shot through with a pervasive bass line which heralds the slightly off-kilter guitars, the whole track packing a creepy, Krill-esque edge, feeling somewhat volatile, as if it could explode in your face at any moment. ‘Joke/Rope’ is a song which, although poles apart in terms of sound, brings to mind a line from talons’ Work Stories which we reviewed a few weeks back. “When I stopped laughing and tried to grow up” Tolan sang, “I just saw the stupid and the sad, and I got cold and lost inside my head.” Here you get the sense that Hong has come to a similar realisation and is clinging to humour, no matter how black, because she’s afraid of what might leak into the vacuum should she stop.
“All I can see
Is the joke or the rope
That cruel, cruel joke
And that sweet, tight rope”
[bandcamp width=100% height=120 album=264163592 size=large bgcol=ffffff linkcol=0687f5 tracklist=false artwork=small track=2996019969]
‘Kramer/Dreams’ sees reverb rumbling like some some far-off storm threatening to come your wayapproach, a fear made good two thirds of the way through, while ‘What It Is’ is a snarling maelstrom of vocals and guitars which sucks you in and spits you out, though only once its all done chewing. From this emerges closer ‘Pig’, a monolithic monster of a track which brings to mind Sondra Sun-Odeon‘s heaviest work. With ever-building intensity, the song lurches forwards in great seismic steps, leaving Hong to shout her vocals in the background, as if screaming at the feet of some great mechanical being.
Blood Harvest is out on cassette via Tiny Engines. You can also get it as a download via the Haybaby Bandcamp page.