AUTUMN ROUND-UP: GLOAM, CHIEFLAND, CLAY J GLADSTONE

Here we take a ride through three particularly notable releases spanning October and early November, starting with:

Gloam-Well Dwelling

As a rule, I find that shoegaze is much more about crafting atmosphere or "vibes" if you like, and this context is important for our first selection; what those genre conventions in mind, hopefully the reader will forgive the relative lack of specificity for our first selection, a shout-out to Perth, Australia’s Gloam, a first-rate shoegaze act whose EP Well Dwelling was released about a month ago and is, put simply, outstanding. My listening experience was defined by taking the EP in totality—with an ambient interlude in "Wilt" and some hints of post-rock buttressing the shoegaze—in all its dreamy glory. Fans of the genre will find much to delight in here.

Chiefland-Sentiment Valley

With production duties handled by Alan Day of Four Year Strong, German outfit Chiefland deliver this five-song EP Sentiment Valley, which builds on a strong foundation of melodic alternative rock and emo with hints of post-punk and shoegaze as well as the ghost of hardcore. Raw and authentic, intimate and yet at times perhaps paradoxically anthemic (see: "Cannibal" for example), this is a mature EP that deals with real human emotion and evokes it expertly. While all of the songs on Sentiment Valley are of high quality, the two standouts to my ear would be the aforementioned "Cannibal" and the closing track "Silent Decay" (featuring Skywalker), a melancholy post-grunge meets shoegaze number that slowly unfolds while powerfully hitting "all the feels." At around the 2/3 mark, most of the band drops out leaving some light guitar and delicately-textured atmosphere with the vocals before exploding in a crescendo of intensity that was particularly potent.

Clay J Gladstone-Is This How I Die?

Hailing from Sydney, Australia, the raucous Clay J Gladstone are somewhat difficult to pin down genre-wise in their combination of punk, emo, indie, power pop, and hard rock, but the closest comparison I could arrive at takes us all the way back to 1997 and Harvey Danger’s Where Have All the Merrymakers Gone? in its self-awareness, dry humor, unfiltered realness, and often reckless abandon. A representative example of this synthesis on Is This How I Die? that shows the band to be a force to be reckoned with is the excellent album-opening title track. "Pessimist" and "Parasite" are two driving, catchy numbers with an edge, and "Post Modern Teenage Angst" felt like a sonic cousin of The Matches’ phenomenal 2004 record E. Von Dahl Killed the Locals as a rougher, self-aware take on pop punk. "Why Does Everybody Hate Me?" is an absolutely massive song that if there’s any justice in this world will be all over the radio airwaves in short order.

As for the record’s narrative context, vocalist Tim Wisbey explains, "After my father's death when I was 19, I developed serious anxiety and panic attacks, which I later recognised as a response to my own extreme fear of death and the unknown. This album chronicles my process to accept and cope with my father's passing. Documenting emotions, situations and problematic thoughts I had throughout my 20s, moving from fear to acceptance. We want listeners to hear the story from song 1 to 13 as it is intended." I immediately saw many parallels with my own journey to recovery from obsessive-compulsive disorder. It is that fear and our adverse reactions to uncertainties that often drive the behaviors—self-destructive avoidance, compulsive in the misguided belief they’re protecting us—that paradoxically keep us trapped in these cycles of anxious dread. To quote Tara Brach, "The boundary to what we can accept is the boundary to our freedom." I’ve been very candid about my own journey and outspoken that recovery is possible. It is not, however, a journey for the faint of heart, as one must not just face all of that fear and those uncertainties at the root of the anxiety, but change one’s relationship with that fear and those uncertainties altogether. Recovery, as I’ve found, is one giant paradox, and we truly embrace that which is most precious to us by letting go of our desperate desires to cling and control. Indeed, as the final words state in album closer "Something to Lose": "It feels so precious ‘cause we know we’ve got something to lose." Surrendering our desires to control and taking that leap of faith to live in trust in the face of what can be overwhelming fear and doubt is actually what brings us closer to what we cherish—knowing and accepting it can be taken from us at any time, and thus valuing it all the more right here and now because now is all we have.