Artist: Buzzard
Title: Hush Now
Type: Album
Label: Digital / Self Release
Ever since Good Boy PR (thank you!) sent me notice of this I’ve been sitting on it. I had to wait until it was close to release date and with just two weeks to go it is time. Now I’m not going to claim that I have a deep knowledge of this project by one Christopher Thomas Elliot of Massachusetts, but my good friend Steve at Outlaws Of The Sun really rated their previous release and when I heard this…well…
‘Disunion’ begins with a thick heavy riff, a fuzzed out sound with almost quiet clean and excellent vocals intoning the lyrics which within moments turn bitter, sad, desperate all at once. It has a weird folk element to it despite the stoner feel but even more the ghost of Roky Erikson haunts the dance. It is truly a beautiful, despairing melody and the lyrics are simply clear … “I don’t mean to drag you down, but I’m just done…” The sound of a soul that has enough of the shite that the world has dragged itself down into. Done with denial, done with making nice…
As an opening statement, it hits hard and straight to the soul.
‘Shutting Down’ continues this journey through the disintegration of America. You know who they voted for… A deep, heavy stomp through a town shutting down, dragging itself to its fate by wilful blind following of the Great Liar. But the lyrics, the quiet moments have the weight of something like Pink Floyd’s The Final Cut. Simple words spun out so beautifully and with such gentle finality.
‘Satan, Your Kingdom Shall Come’ with its relentless refrain of hush now. Be quiet, know your place. God ain’t dead, he just smells that way… It’s hard to overstate how the vocals drive this home. Steady, clear eyed, bitter as all Hell. ‘Knock On The Door’ is doomy folk with the most mournful melody, the light guitar runs interspersed with the fuzzed riff descending. One more knock on the door, who can they be coming for…? Those who follow the machine, too many simple people following orders. Perhaps putting off the inevitable when they become the ones behind the door. It’s a grim painting, a bleak world. you’ll be standing in the shoes of those before who had to choose. It hurts, this world, it really hurts.
The riff of ‘Mount Din’ descends heavy and slow and is dense and obscure. Mass extinctions, destroyed civilisations. Lyrics teetering on the edge of insanity and so speaking so much truth. ‘Fireball’ follows along like light rain, banjo before the riff. Here’s to the steel strings, the hard times, the wild things. Then tyranny imposes silence, we sing in defiance. The need, the reason for the folk tradition. Speak truth to power. ‘Contaminate, Consume’. But what are humans for? Contaminate, consume. The thumping riff of reality breaking the delicate description of nature. Great stoner riffs spilling the stink of truth over the green land. Look elsewhere for hope. And yet somehow none of this seems….overstated. Every song, every composition clear and bitter and lyrics reeking of truth.
‘Ten Extinction Credits’ a countdown of the checkbox list following humanity down the shitter on its own gameshow. Look what you’ve won… It bludgeons you over and over again and offers no way to look away.
At last a song called ‘Take Comfort’. Maybe? Tonight I see the cruelty of people on display. I take comfort from the fact the sun will explode some day. We take commfort where we find it and that, for Buzzard is all there is. Almost a lullaby, a lament rolled up in the coldest of blankets for most but… comfort finds us in strange places. You must ignore the hatred painted on the underpass. One fine day the sun will burn this wicked world away… It’s horrible, beautiful and so deeply heartfelt it hurts.
This album of lament closes with ‘Doomsayer Fairy Tale (Heavy Groove Story Time)’. Thick riff, fairy tales twisted. It’s all good if you say so and continues to repeat what really happened to Old Macdonald. At times it bursts into fire, a blazing surging refrain and at others it slides back into the quiet. So it goes away…
Everything here is…bleak. Even those happy melodies that surface briefly carry that thread of unflinchingly staring at the world and speaking their truth. Buzzard have constructed a tunnel down which they stare. It seeks to strip away the lies, the obfuscation, the corrupted collaborators words. But it does so with such perfect poetry and weird, compelling mixing of stoner, doom and folk with the heart of each intact. The vocals are just perfect; full of cynicism yes but also feeling, compassion and deep emotion. We get strange glimpses of Pink Floyd at their most bleak, of Roky Erikson’s ability to allow lyrics to tumble out seemingly riddled with insanity and yet opening up to let the truth spill.
Genuine folk melodies from the soul dancing with thick riffs and incredible but grim lyrical dexterity. It leaves no place to hide.
Unique.
Gizmo
