AN NCS PREMIERE: OLDE OUTLIER — “SWEPT”

(written by Islander)

Obviously, we host lots of premieres — almost every weekday. Our rule is not to agree unless we’ve first listened to what’s being offered and then come away pleased. There are exceptions, when we’re familiar with the band’s music or have a high degree of trust in whomever’s pitching the premiere. In today’s premiere a different and even more rare kind of exception became insistent: I thought the band’s name could have been a description of myself, and for almost that reason alone, I said YES, without hearing the song.

You can see the band’s name up there: Olde Outlier. I’d never heard their music before, for the good reason that they haven’t released any records yet. The forthcoming album that includes the song we’re premiering — From Shallow Lives to Shallow Graves — is their first one. When I read the pitch, I learned that their lineup makes them appear to be a continuation of an Australia band named Innsmouth, who split up after the 2014 release of their sole album, Consumed by Elder Sign. But since I never heard that album, the history didn’t mean much.

I usually find myself in accord with the choices made by Olde Outlier’s label and the label’s PR agent, so that provided a degree of confidence. And I was enthralled by the album’s cover art. But really, more than anything else, it came down to the band’s name. Maybe a flimsy reed to lean on in deciding to host this premiere, but it turned out to be no reed, but a stout trunk.

The name of the song is “Swept“. It’s one of only four on Olde Outlier’s full-length debut, but three of those (including “Swept“) are in the 8-minute range, and the fourth one (“The Pounding of Hooves“) is just a hair shy of 11 minutes, so they’re not skimping on the music. Here are some thoughts about “Swept“:

Until near the end, when another frightening voice is heard as the music fades away, the vocals sound like Death himself — if the Grim Reaper had spent multitudes of millennia smoking and drinking, slowly losing his mind in addition to harvesting souls, and now occupying himself (in between the harvesting) barking, snarling, screaming, grumbling, and muttering with a rough and degraded but still ghastly voice within the rude and friendless confinement of cracked walls, bone-strewn floors, and guttering candles. He doesn’t sound well at all (but he still sounds lethal).

The guitars, in one of their aspects, are fuzzy and fizzy, kind of like sand being frothed by a sloshing tide but also like scaled serpents, jubilant but highly venomous. Initially, that gnarly riffing generates an infectious pulse, but then it subsides, replaced by slow, glittering notes that are eerily hallucinatory. When the riffing returns it manifests as an insidious but demented swarm.

The band continue deploying these contrasting tonal aspects and use them to dig their hooks in deeper, creating sensations that are menacing and beckoning, sinister and surreal, and they also intersperse insistent fretwork throbs and shiny swirls. It’s very much like sonic sorcery, like the fiendish but seductive revels of warlocks and witches.

The bass is a prominent and absolutely vital presence (and a third tonal ingredient), pretty funky and sometimes kind of proggy. You could reflexively dance to these bass-lines — reflexively, because the rest of the music is making your head go tripping. It’s mainly the bass that might keep you from falling on your ass. Well, the bass and the drums.

The drums are often like a metronome, just steady rocking beats for people whose minds have been rendered very simple, but with occasional abrupt spasms, little nerve-jangling outbursts, and other punchy grooves.

Put it all together, and these ingredients create an eldritch time-trip that is itself a musical old outlier, an amalgam of ’60s and ’70s psychedelic jams, ghoulish black metal from the early ’90s, and certain flavors of ancient occult doom. It’s not complicated music, but it’s ingenious how everything fits together so well.

Listening is like inhaling fumes that are sulphurous but also sweet; the song is insidiously addictive but mind-altering, carnal and creepy, earthy and ethereal. A musicologist with broad tastes and of a certain age would have fun trying to pick out all the influences. All you have to do is just inhale the vapors. Breathe deeply:

(Thinking again about how well the band’s name resonates with me: “Gnarly Olde Bastard” would have resonated too, but I’m glad they chose the name they did.)

Here’s a bit of background info about the band that we received from the publicist for their label (Iron Bonehead Productions):

In one sense, OLDE OUTLIER are a continuation of Australia’s late, great Innsmouth: a certifiably cult band whose debut album, 2014’s Consumed by Elder Sign, is considered a classic by the underground-dwelling souls who heard it. Further grounding that band’s cult status was the presence of brothers Beau and Neil Dyer, who helmed the sadly short-lived Grenade during the first half of the 2000s. However, Beau has now assembled a new lineup in OLDE OUTLIER, which includes guitarist Askew, who was Grenade’s lead guitarist, and vocalist Appleton and bassist Greenbank, both of whom were in Innsmouth’s live lineup following the release of the album and before that band folded.

Olde Outlier’s debut album From Shallow Lives to Shallow Graves will be released on December 19th by Iron Bonehead Productions on CD and vinyl LP formats. On the day of release you’ll be able to order it via the links below.

Also below you’ll find a previously released song from the album called “The Revellers“. Musically it’s many things — a hard-charging muscle-moving gallop; a heavy metal anthem; a simmering cauldron of dreadful poison; a casting of spells from a land beyond our own (and a dosing of hallucinogens); with filigrees of near-medieval elegance in the mix too.

Enjoy the nimbleness and nuance of the bass again. Enjoy the sheer ravenous ugliness of the vocals again (but this time joined by haunting wails). Let the drums work your head like a piston once more. Lose your mind, and hope you’ll find it later.

IRON BONEHEAD:
https://www.ironbonehead.de
https://ironboneheadproductions.bandcamp.com
https://www.facebook.com/ironboneheadproductions