Album Review: Blank Realm - Go Easy

It's difficult to remember when Blank Realm used to be a psychedelic dirge jam band, and even just the cover to latest album Go Easy recedes those memories. A neon swathe of '80s gloss and shimmer, the photograph works well in initiating what lays within, while blasting all preconceptions out of the water.

How can such juxtaposition exist? Take flagship song Acting Strange for example. It's dirty, it's chaotic, it's feverish, it's a melange of noise played loose and free. Dan and Sarah Spencer's vocals intertwine in equal doses of laconicism and high-pitched anxiety. The synth is broken glass on the spine of the melody. Luke Walsh's guitar roils and spits as only the most fervent No Wave acolytes know how. But there is tightness within; the quartet is more in control of their ID than ever before, and even more adept at spinning on a dime. Acting Strange bleeds away into the languorous Cleaning Up My Mess, all loose limbs and slack-jawed grins, offering an interesting amalgam of the Victorian slacker-pop zeitgeist with glacial wear and tear, and a Flying Nun-esque guitar solo. Working On Love seems like the closest the band will come to a straight-up garage rocker, before the insidious barbiturate-pop of Growing Inside scratches at the inside of the skull once more. The band even split The Crackle in half, leaving a post-punk abrasion on one side and an indolent down-the-rabbit-hole percussive nightmare on the other.

Just when most albums run out of steam, Go Easy saves the best to last with excellent guitar wigout Pendulum Swing and the delectable amble of the title track. Blank Realm have absolutely nailed it.