Tag: Exhalants

Video by William Ruben Helms

Live Footage: Neckbolt Performs “The Lighted Chamber” at The Museum of Human Achievement

Austin-based noise rock outfit Neckbolt was founded last year by multi-instrumentalist Benjamin Krause and vocalist James Roi after Krause relocated to Austin. The band’s name may evoke images of the bolts that held Frankenstein’s monster’s appendages together — or a bolt that connects the guitar neck to its body. For the band, both images are fitting ways to describe their sound and approach: a freakish hodgepodge of musical body parts and ideas rendered in a nightmarish form while still hewing to the rock ‘n’ roll canon.

The Austin-based noise rock outfit’s full-length debut was written and recorded between 2020 and 2021 with Krause playing all of the album’s instrumentation while Roo provided vocals, lyrics and artwork. Slated for a November 5, 2021 release through Bandcamp and Digital Hotdogs, Midwestern Drawl reportedly requires close listening to parse out the informed musicianship that binds the skewed, screeching and skronking elements together.

After they completed the album’s 11 songs, the duo opted to expand the band’s lineup in order to play the material live. Krause and Roo recruited Exhalants‘ Bill Indelicato and Power Pyramid‘s Kilyn Massey and Brent Hodge to complete the band’s lineup.

With their current lineup of Krause, Roo, Indelicato, Massey and Hodge, the band then shot Neckbolt Live! at the Museum of Human Achievement, the forthcoming live performance companion video, which will be released on VHS and online the same day as the album’s release. The members of the band tracked, edited, filmed and mixed the VHS release in six hours in a room without air conditioning on a sweltering Texan summer day.

Despite clocking in at a little under three minutes, Midwestern Drawl‘s latest single “The Lighted Chamber” is centered around an expansive arrangement featuring howled vocals buried in a muscular and forceful mix of buzzing power chords, screeching feedback, angular skronk and propulsive rhythm. Sonically, “The Lighted Chamber” finds the act balancing wild and noisy abandon with tight musicianship.

The live footage features the members of the band in Tyvek jumpsuits in front of psychedelic projections.

Video by William Ruben Helms

Earlier this year, I wrote a bit about the Austin, TX-based trio Exhalants, and as you may recall, the band which features Steve (guitar, vocals), Bill (bass) and Body Pressure’s Tommy (drums), can trace its origins to the breakup of Steve’s and Bill’s previous band  Carl Sagan’s Skate Shoes. As the story goes, with the inevitably downtime that’s a result of a band’s breakup, Steve wound up spending his free time further honing his guitar playing before he recruited his former CSSS bandmate and Tommy to complete the project’s lineup.

Released earlier this year, the band’s self-titled full-length debt was recorded and mixed by Ghetto Ghouls‘ Ian Rundell and mastered by Yeesh’s Greg Obis, and the albums largely inspired by  Shellac, Unwound and Cherubs, while nodding at the work of contemporaries like Melkbelly, Kal Marks and A Deer A Horse  — or in other words, much like those bands, the album finds the band balancing pummeling and bruising heaviness with an underlining melodic sensibility. Interestingly, album single “Punishers” is an aptly titled, furious, abrasive and — well, punishing ripper centered by enormous power chords, wild peals of feedback and pummeling drumming. Sonically speaking, the song is a mosh pit-friendly anthemic that should be played way too loudly in a dark, sweaty room.

Unsurprisingly, the recently released video for “Punishers” will bring 120 Minutes-era MTV to mind, as its an equally pushing visual, consisting of warped, distorted VHS footage — and while old-timey, it manages to evoke the terror and fury of our time.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

Over the past month, I’ve managed to write a bit about the Austin, TX-based trio Exhalants, and as you may recall the band which features Steve (guitar, vocals), Bill (bass) and Tommy (drums), a member of Body Pressure, can trace its origins to the breakup of Steve and Bill’s previous band  Carl Sagan’s Skate Shoes. With the inevitable downtime that happens when a band breaks up, Steve spent his free time further honing his guitar playing before recruiting his former CSSS bandmate and Tommy to complete the project’s lineup.

Exhalants’ selff-titled debut is slated for release next week, and the soon-to-be released album is largely inspired by Shellac, Unwound and Cherubs, while nodding at the work of contemporaries like Melkbelly, Kal Marks and A Dear A Horse — or in other words, the album’s material finds the band balancing pummeling heaviness with an infectious melodicism; however, the album’s third and latest single “If Only” is a slow-burning grunge-era inspired dirge, centered around pummeling drumming, distortion-fed power chords, howled vocals and an alternating quiet-loud-quiet song structure. Sonically, the new single seems to recall Melvins, Soundgarden, Nirvana and Alice in Chains while maintaining their uncanny sense of melody.  And from the album’s first three singles, Exhalants may be releasing one of the hardest hitting albums of the year.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

 

Earlier this month, I wrote about the Austin, TX-based trio Exhalants, and as you may recall the band which features Steve (guitar, vocals), Bill (bass) and Tommy (drums), a member of Body Pressure, the band can trace its origins to the break of Steve and Bill’s previous band  Carl Sagan’s Skate Shoes. With the inevitable downtime that happens when a band breaks up, Steve spent his free time further honing his guitar playing before recruiting his former CSSS bandmate and Tommy to complete the project’s lineup.

Recorded and mixed by Ghetto Ghouls‘ Ian Rundell and mastered by Yeesh’s Greg Obis, Exhalants’ forthcoming self-titled debut is largely inspired by the likes of Shellac, Unwound and Cherubs, while nodding at the work of contemporaries like Melkbelly, Kal Marks and A Dear A Horse — or in other words, the album’s material finds the band balancing pummeling heaviness; in fact, album single “Latex” was an an anthemic ripper with enormous “raise your beer in the air and shout along” hooks, arena rock-like power chords and deep low end. And while being deceptively simple, the song upon repeated listens reveals rapid tonal and tempo shifts that are barely held together by the explosiveness of the band’s playing. “Punishers,” Exhalants’ latest single is a furious and aptly punishing ripper, complete with angular guitar power chords, wild peals of feedback and forceful drumming. It may arguably be the most punk rock and mosh-pit friendly songs off the album so far — but they do so while nodding at 90s alt rock.