Drowse – Dance In The Decay LP (Sore Ear Collective)

Drowse is one of those bands I’ve been fully aware of for a couple of years, but somehow I always put it aside for later listening. For some weird reason only known to me, I never gave them a proper chance to shine bright on my home stereo. Luckily, I heard some rumors about their latest recording on Sore Ear. The vast majority of fellow bloggers and closest friends gave them some positive feedback, so I decided to give it a spin. Right after the first beats of their newest record, I realized how big mistake I’ve made by not listening to their recordings before.

Previously, Drowse released a demo cassette in 2014, Power Eats Power CS in 2015, another promo tape in 2016, and a self-titled 7” record in the same year. Later on, the group released a lathe-cut 7” record called Arabian Knights. With that being said, Dance In The Decay represents their debut full-length recording that includes twelve compelling hardcore punk songs. Drowse delivers a thoroughly combined mixture of abrasive hardcore punk, deathrock and post-punk, presented in such a specific manner. Think of Rudimentary Peni sound, empowered by hysterical vocals, louder guitars, and contemporary production. Still, Drowse explores post-punk aesthetics through the lyrics and visual identity. Both beforementioned aspects are devotedly following the sound of this spectacular group.

Still, the album holds many energetic moments that are not characteristic for genres such as deathrock and post-punk, so the group tends to speed things up a little bit from time to time. Drowse embraces the darkness, horror, macabre, depression, and it strains these aesthetics through an energetic performance full of pleasant surprises. You may stumble upon some other accentuations, mainly borrowed from powerviolence, doom, sludge, and noise rock, but these elements serve more like decorations within particular songs. Drowse is crossing over these abovementioned genres with such ease, without losing any consistency along the way. Dance In The Decay appears as a bone-crushing material from scratch to finish. Therefore you’ll be quite entertained by their powerful performance, followed by the hysterical leading vocals, blistering guitar shreds, semi-distorted basslines, and exceptional drumming performance.

Dance In The Decay comes on limited marbled grey vinyl, accompanied by a visual identity that vividly mimics the eighties goth, deathrock, post-punk album cover designs. Head over to Sore Ear Collective Bigcartel store for more details about the ordering.