Blood Bright Star's Reuben Sawyer might be primarily known as a visual artist, but his growing discography as a musician indicates that he is a man of many talents. The Silver Head, a four song 12" has him locking into a classically minimalist groove that pulls brilliantly from post punk, krautrock, and metal. The results retain just the right amount of experimentation, while still resulting in a memorable suite of songs.
One of the defining qualities of this record is Sawyer's almost militant adherence to motorik grooves, the type that Can and Neu! made a name for themselves using.The tight, complex repetitive drumming throughout The Silver Head stretches to both sides of the vinyl, and is what really drew me in upon my first listening.On "Ash Through The Aethyr", the drums are tastefully placed in the mix, and wonderfully intertwined with the bass guitar.Sawyer’s vocals follow the deep monotone delivery that works just as well here as it did on the 1980s death rock albums I cannot help but associate the style with.
"Pale Sphere Apparition" is slower, and even bleaker than what preceded it.With the sparingly used vocals and funereal pace, I was definitely feeling parallels with The Cure circa 1980-1981 but with a monastic discipline as far as repetitive rhythms go.The short "Lunar Madness" shows Sawyer bringing in a little bit of light, but not much.Comparably it is more up-tempo and utilizes a lot of chiming guitar melodies, a sound not drastically removed from the first Interpol album.
The entire duration of the B-side is taken up by the long title song, which keeps the repetition but Sawyer implements more variation and diversity necessary for a piece of this length.Opening with a thin, fuzzy noise opening, a hint of southern guitar twang shows up ever so cautiously.Rawer tones and melodies slip through, and like a good minimalist record there is a staunch repetition that obscures small, but effective changes that slowly become apparent.
I cannot help but hear some similarities on The Silver Head with some of Horseback’s earliest work.Both feature the same hypnotic, minimalist approach to composition, placing more contemporary styles into a more traditionalist framework.The tone is very different, however:while Horseback's sound is a southern tinged Master of Reality, Blood Bright Star instead embraces Unknown Pleasures, with some contributions from its gothic antecedents.Rather than just being a repetitive droning work, Sawyer's output is memorable and at times even catchy, something few albums like this can manage.
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