deathcrash & Mandy, Indiana team up on "Duffy's Remix"
Given their debut album was made in disparate conditions, spread out over a year via multiple recordings, the band knew that they wanted to make something “more complete and cohesive” as a group. Time spent on the road had solidified them as a four-piece and given them greater confidence about their own capabilities. While Return loudly and proudly paid homage to its influences, Less is more about the band growing into themselves and eschewing easy categorisation and labelling.
The result is a record that is as powerful and potent as it is tender and introspective, with arrangements that manage to feel refined yet detailed and with a deep emotional resonance at the core of the record. Banks’ voice shifts from hushed whispers to guttural screams, one minute tapping into the kind of fragile beauty that artists like Elliott Smith managed so well, on tracks such as ‘Duffy’s’ before unleashing a doom metal growl in thundering unison with the band on ‘Empty Heavy’.
In the same versatile fashion, the band glides from delicate and skeletal arrangements that emphasise reflective pauses and pondering silences, to moments of fierce and punchy dynamism. “It was raw,” says Weinberger of the experience. “Because the sound is cleaner, clearer and exposed, there's a vulnerability there because we just put it all out there on the record.” Stream !
