Last year we wrote about When Horses Would Run by Being Dead, describing how songs like ‘Muriel’s Big Day Off‘ typified the “effervescent energy,” of the Austin, Texas outfit, “not to mention the off-the-wall spirit which is always playful but never insincere.” The album was essentially a friendship committed to tape, embracing the trust, fun and zany energy which marks any good platonic relationship to create something of an alternate world. The world of Being Dead, one heightened in every regard, the pace cranked and colours turned up.
But if you thought When Horses Would Run was inventive, then just wait until you hear what is coming next. Because the new Being Dead full-length EELS, forthcoming next month on Bayonet Records, takes everything that made its predecessor special and pushes it further. Travelling to Los Angeles for a fortnight of writing and recording with John Congleton, the pair pushed themselves to embrace the singular spirit of their work. The result is a record that’s more intense, more raucous and darker than anything which has come before, without sacrificing that mischievous persona.
A key intention of the album was to never retread old ground, and Falcon Bitch and Shmoofy live up to the desire to create a fluid, ever-shifting record that keeps the audience guessing right down to the final minutes (could a release that opens with a song called ‘Godzilla Rises’ be any different?). Single ‘Van Goes’ offers the first glimpse of the darker tone, though this wouldn’t be Being Dead if was just that simple. Because while there’s a shadowy quality, with vocal harmonies that might grace a candlelit medieval hall, there’s an undeniable surf-rock vibe on show too, and in the chaotic breakdowns that punctuate the taut rhythm, there’s even the suggestion of something futuristic.
‘Firefighters’ continues the trend. Its opening suggests a dense garage rock behemoth but the song refuses to sit still long enough to solidify into a single shape. Bright harmonies seep into the gaps between the heaviest moments, like the ghost of some retro pop outfit trapped within a lightning storm, and the electric energy drives things forward with its volatile momentum. Most recent single ‘Nightvision’ flips this on its head, its subdued opening recalling the off-the-wall pop of Dear Nora, though soon the acoustic rhythm builds into something folk-inflected and nocturnal. And if the songs are shapeshifting entities, then they are only microcosms of EELS as a record. As though with each song, the wider world of the album is brought into relief, each a tile in a mosaic which exists as something larger than its whole.
