If you’re a Nashville band a lot of people are going to assume one thing about you — that you make country music. Idle Bloom does not make country music. Instead, their post-rock debut album Little Deaths is full of sharp-eyed disaffection, glittering riffs, and wailing choruses that do not go gentle into that good night, or anywhere else for that matter.
Dylan Thomas would be proud of this band if they’d existed in the same century, because the only thing they do is rage against the dying of the light. If more bands had this kind of singleminded, steely resolve, then perhaps people would stop complaining that indie rock has lost its way. It hasn’t, for what it’s worth, and Idle Bloom are just another entry in the 2017 ledger that prove that.
One of the things that sets them apart immediately in the heavier territory is that Idle Bloom are fronted by a woman, Olivia Scibelli, and that’s still rare enough in this scene to be notable. She carries early album tracks like “Hive” and “Seeker” through dueling lead guitar solos and frenetic percussion to make their dark psych-rock accessible and memorable. By mid-album, “Sleeper” even feels like a pop song in terms of catchiness, and the short, near three-minute length of most tracks on Little Death help this record keep the breezy, urgent feel of a punk album.
This full-length follows up the Tennessee quartet’s initial 2015 EP Some Paranoia, and builds off the punctuated, melodic dissonance found on that release. The album was recorded out in the boondocks of Tennessee with engineer — and band friend — Kyle Gilbride, who has worked with bands like Girlpool and Waxahatchee. Clearly, Gilbride knows how to mix a powerful female vocal, something many male engineers struggle with, and Scibelli always sounds fierce, never stringent.
Aside from Scibelli, bassist Katie Banyay keeps the tracks grounded, drummer Weston Sparks never lets up, and newer addition to the band, Gavin Schriver, shreds on lead guitar and adds texture with background vocals. For a fairly new band, the group already have am undeniable, heady chemistry that elevates them above the fray of regional bands trying to make it on the national level. With Little Deaths, Idle Bloom prove they’re much bigger than Nashville, or even post-punk. They’re an American band, and they’re going to rage, even if the light is beginning to die. Stream the album above.
Little Deaths is out today 2/17 via Fraternity As Vanity.
