Miss the 60s and 70s? Little Barrie do.
Every album so far has passionately recreated some elements of the era. From their soulful debut to their blues rock follow up, they’ve even done surf and more. So what’s left? Turns out more than expected, it just needed a little lateral thinking.
Death Express sounds like the title to a 70’s movie for a reason, one of those disaster ones like Towering Inferno or Swarm. Though more likely it’s meant to be more in the vein of Vanishing Point or Sudden Impact. It inspires visions of muscle cars, unspeakably cool people with large shades and larger flares, and one funky and/or jazzy soundtrack.
The album is full of 70’s soundtrack era Lalo Schifrin, like their own Bullet or Dirty Harry moment with hints of the creepy tones of Goblin’s powerfully stark Giallo soundtrack shocks. This gives the record a far more exploratory, almost jazzy feel, though still with a strong edge after spent feeling their way around the music and letting it breathe rather than simply slamming hard with short bursts of guitar like in the past.
It’s a soundtrack to the most powerful car chase sequence ever, with reflective interludes and flashbacks and everything. I.5.C.A. is as dirty, scuzzy, messy and funky as soiled flares, all moody Black Angels meets Band Of Skulls, while Golden Age is more reminiscent of Little Barrie‘s own Cash In, only now a little more reflective and less brash, but no less exciting.
With New Disease, Little Barrie stride back in with their usual power trio sledgehammer, riffs and funky drums that ooze so much style and brilliance. Then, almost immediately, You Won’t Stop Us dials it way back down again. It has a softer, more soulful and natural feel that’s more in the vein of their debut.
The whole album has this same distinct, fluctuating pattern. Tonally it’s as hard hitting as it is reflective. With reverb and riff laden blasts (Molotov Cop), jazzy interludes (Bill$ House) and frenzied freak outs (Vulture Swarm).
But that’s not all. Like any great soundtrack, it’s packing some dramatic surprises. Whether that’s the expected – Love Or Love – or the unexpected – the title track’s insane, frequency crunching weirdness, like some rock-funk take on Josh Wink’s Higher State of Consciousness – it’s as insane and brilliant as it sounds.
And amidst all this they still have enough left in them to go down, guns blazing, with real style. Shoulders Up, Eyes Down is all call and balling response, a stunningly hard-hitting way to finish.
Death Express is the perfect title. It fittingly signals an unrelenting, loud, driving experience. It’s a record that is moving forward and never looking back. It may sound old-school, but unlike their usually heavily retro influenced music, Death Express sounds like nothing else. Instead, they’re just crunching together an extraordinary sound of whatever works.
Death Express surprises by actually being surprising. No one saw this coming. Even when it feels like familiar territory, it’s merely leading the sound down a new avenue. This is a bold move for a band to soundtrack their own imaginations, but it works. It adds drama, depth and power to their sound by removing a lot of the power.
The record is never obvious, it’s never simple. Instead, Little Barrie have made an album that relies on the audience’s ability to come on the journey with them. It trusts them to understand that the scariest rides are the most exciting, even in their quieter moments.
And this is one hell of a ride.
