Not even ten days to go until the proceedings begin and with this album being played in full, this is definitely a Roadburn anticipation post.
Yes, Big|Brave have only just opened the festival last year, but "Nature Morte" should easily justify their early return.
BIG|BRAVE - Nature Morte (Lavender Vinyl LP) (2023)
So the Canadian Drone Noise trio is still doing what Big|Brave always does, right? - Yes and yes, but.
In my review of their last regular album "Vital" I put the basics of the band's music this way: "Big|Brave are just incredibly skilled at the maybe two most important aspects of music: Pauses and sound."
And that still applies a hundred percent. Of course there are the brutal minimalistic guitars, which seldom play anything complex enough to even resemble what is commonly called a riff, but instead indulge in pure crushing weight, appropriately accompanied by Industrial style drums playing exactly the minimum amount of hits required for a maximum of intensity. And over this sonic devastation wails the unique voice of Robin Wattie with a similar approach to melody: It is there in some form, but ultimately the unfiltered raw emotion is much more important than any hookline you could sing along to.
On the instrumental track "My Hope Renders Me A Fool", which closes the album's first half, we can notice a shift though, as the droning distorted guitar tone as a warmer, more embracing, consouling quality to it than we have heard from the band before.
Side B then introduces a lot more of quiet and clean guitars as "The Fable Of Subjugation" proves the lasting imprint of "Leaving None But Small Birds", their Appalachian Folk inspired collaboration with The Body.
The following "A Parable Of The Trusting", yet another track with a duration over nine minutes, returns to a more familiar format, but presents the vocals in an easier understandable and thus all the more devastating manner. "Behind everything I do, there is the thought of you. Behind everyone new I greet, I query who they can really be. The lens from which I see, is through what they've forced on me. Behind all I do there is the knowledge of you."
Wattie's lyrics are full of simple/complicated, hurtfully relatable truths, which elevate the whole album experience to more than the sum of its sounds.
Ending it with the short and most silent "The Ten Of Swords" almost seems like a necessity, because you just need to calm down after the emotional turmoil before.
I will never be able to confidently claim a new Big|Brave release as their first/second/whatever best, because so far they have always delivered variations of an already close-to-perfect vision. I just love this band. And while that especially applies to their live performances, their studio works are always a profound physical and emotional experience as close to "the real thing" as possible.
"Nature More" is far from an exeption from that rule. It's not even a bet to predict that it will rightfully find itself in many album of the year lists only eight months from now.
In my review of their last regular album "Vital" I put the basics of the band's music this way: "Big|Brave are just incredibly skilled at the maybe two most important aspects of music: Pauses and sound."
And that still applies a hundred percent. Of course there are the brutal minimalistic guitars, which seldom play anything complex enough to even resemble what is commonly called a riff, but instead indulge in pure crushing weight, appropriately accompanied by Industrial style drums playing exactly the minimum amount of hits required for a maximum of intensity. And over this sonic devastation wails the unique voice of Robin Wattie with a similar approach to melody: It is there in some form, but ultimately the unfiltered raw emotion is much more important than any hookline you could sing along to.
On the instrumental track "My Hope Renders Me A Fool", which closes the album's first half, we can notice a shift though, as the droning distorted guitar tone as a warmer, more embracing, consouling quality to it than we have heard from the band before.
Side B then introduces a lot more of quiet and clean guitars as "The Fable Of Subjugation" proves the lasting imprint of "Leaving None But Small Birds", their Appalachian Folk inspired collaboration with The Body.
The following "A Parable Of The Trusting", yet another track with a duration over nine minutes, returns to a more familiar format, but presents the vocals in an easier understandable and thus all the more devastating manner. "Behind everything I do, there is the thought of you. Behind everyone new I greet, I query who they can really be. The lens from which I see, is through what they've forced on me. Behind all I do there is the knowledge of you."
Wattie's lyrics are full of simple/complicated, hurtfully relatable truths, which elevate the whole album experience to more than the sum of its sounds.
Ending it with the short and most silent "The Ten Of Swords" almost seems like a necessity, because you just need to calm down after the emotional turmoil before.
I will never be able to confidently claim a new Big|Brave release as their first/second/whatever best, because so far they have always delivered variations of an already close-to-perfect vision. I just love this band. And while that especially applies to their live performances, their studio works are always a profound physical and emotional experience as close to "the real thing" as possible.
"Nature More" is far from an exeption from that rule. It's not even a bet to predict that it will rightfully find itself in many album of the year lists only eight months from now.
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