With previous albums From the Basement and Memory, Thirteen, Chicago’s Dead Bandit (duo Ellis Swan and James Schimpl) shaped a raw, shadowy style which, as we put it back in 2023, “merg[es] Southern Gothic needle and hauntological strangeness,” into something cryptic and alluring. Now the project is back with a self-titled full-length, again on Quindi Records, a release which builds upon these foundations to polish the Dead Bandit sound, expand it to new horizons, and deepen the creative vision at its core.
The guitar again sits front and centre, Swan and Schimpl’s use of the instrument seemingly endless in its variety. The record has country-inflected twangs and post-rock complexities, fuzzed out guitar drones and razor sharp melodies. The result is something of a landscape. One rural in tone which seems at once physical and emotional. Often stark and severe in its loneliness, a kind of haunted prairie or steppe, yet often possessing some kind of yearning fondness for the wide open space.
Lead tracks ‘Glass’ and ‘Half Smoked Cigarette’ serve as an introduction to this world. The former is a smoky, ambiguous number which seems to hover all around the listener. A memory of some old barroom ballad suspended in the air. And while the latter possesses more clarity with its motorik beat, there’s gloom to the sound which feels unending. An overcast sky as viewed from the flattest place on Earth. Grey stretching from one horizon to the next. But for all the tracks’ moodiness and portent, that sense of fondness is never far away. As though within the melancholy lies some inherent fear of loss, and with it a desire to hold on to that which is fragile, or else mourn it prematurely.
Dead Bandit will be released on the 14th March via Quindi Records and you can pre-order it now from Bandcamp.
