REVIEW by Jesse Smith
Title: Negative Space
By: Bittercup
Year: 2019
Track Listing:
1. Led Astray by a Chemical
2. The Ballroom
3. Sequel
4. Attracted to the Pain
Hey Turkeys,
Following the tail-end of a North Island tour, Bittercup is wrapping the first half of this year having performed at over a dozen venues. To precede our interview with Callum of Bittercup, I’m here to give my opinion on their debut EP - Negative Space.
If you’re wanting to stirring, hypothermic song to fall out of a building from on a night so cold you can’t feel your face on the way down, the opening track is where to go. It wanders between a soft, sharp matter of falsetto and a crackling howl at its peaks, all the while forcing you to circle the drain with an unforgettable bass-line. It’s romantic without the ballad and the guitars are early Blindspott without the comradery. This is all clearly a one man show and it feels like it. A cold, synthetically-charged song and I daresay it’s my favourite so far.
Now if you’re expecting a strictly machine-driven experience, you’re going to be disappointed once track 2 starts. There are only two ways to listen to this song - isolated on headphones or cranked up all the way on surround. Whether this is the best track placement on the album is questionable, but that’s not to say it doesn’t work. It comes from a mostly curious place on my part and I can’t wait to talk about the process of how these songs came together in this way. The Ballroom dances your ears and is completely fucking immersive. It plays like noise therapy for the synesthesiac in you. He’s licking your brain with that voice and playing your veins with that guitar. This might have the best production of the album, but we’re two tracks deep so I’m happy to be proven wrong. A dizzying high of a song and I daresay it’s my favourite so far.
Track 3, Sequel, haunts the album and is where the love goes to die. It’s a dirty Western Gothic affair and at 5 minutes 10 seconds it still feels like it could go longer. There’s life in this track and it provides a sense of loss knowing I’m only ever going to get this close to whatever these words mean. If Led Astray by a Chemical is the end of the neo-noir pretending to be the opening scene, Sequel is the closing credit and fade to black pretending to be the Danny Boyle third act falling off the rails in futility. I can only imagine what this song is like performed live. It’s a short story and a genuine display of what could come from a full length album. A manic-depressive duet and I daresay it’s my favourite so far.
Oh, you want to know if the boy can sing? Track 4. If the Pain is Callum’s throat, then I am indeed attracted to it. With the opening track if someone told me that Bittercup is one person, I’d believe them. But with this? No way. Something I realise coming to the end of the album is that it builds in four distinct pieces to culminate what feels like a fully realised band. If you’re left wondering where the first half of the story that is Led Astray by a Chemical, it’s Attracted to the Pain. A song that convinces you that falling is okay, even on the coldest of nights and I daresay it’s my favourite so far.
To me, the mark of a good song is whether you can build a story, a universe, a film, something, beyond it. Delighted to report that Negative Space does, and it does it well. Of all the Bittercup albums, it’s my favourite so far.
4.5 stars out of a possible 4.5 stars.
Plug:
https://bittercup.bandcamp.com
https://soundcloud.com/bittercup
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCGTCxuWGR6Jm9LN66wRTdrQ
https://twitter.com/bittercupmusic
https://www.facebook.com/bittercupofficial
