Slowcore / post-rock quartet deathcrash have their debut album Return arriving in just a couple of weeks, but before that they’ve given us one more single to sit alongside “Horses” and “Unwind”. Speaking on the genesis of the new single, “Doomcrash”, bassist Patrick Fitzgerald says:
“This all started with a really over-the-top doom riff I would play on the bass in rehearsal sometimes, with an absurd amount of distortion. We all loved it but whenever we tried to take it anywhere it lost its magic. Tiernan, as he often does, got very obsessed with the ‘idea’ of this doom riff, and became determined to make it into something. None of us liked what Tiernan was doing and it got to the point where I refused to even play the riff. I don’t know how it actually unfolded but i remember when we were in this awful rehearsal room filled with soft rock memorabilia, me and Tiernan were sitting on the sofa and he showed me a new riff he’d made, based around the chords from the dreaded doom riff. I was back on board. Immediately I started writing the most post-rock bass riff I could think of, unplugged, there on the sofa. We recorded it on a phone. That’s why I love deathcrash, because one of us can always see something that the others can’t, and then it clicks.”
That reconfigured ‘doom’ riff is certainly a mighty piece of sonic work, but “Doomcrash” is all about the slow-building tension to get to that point. deathcrash patiently, quietly and ever-so-precisely reel us in across the song’s nine minutes, delicately atmospheric production and Tiernan Banks’ sighing vocals only making us lean in closer. By the half way point, you’re so engrossed that it feels as though we’ve practically got our ear pressed to the vibrating strings of the guitars. That only makes the eventual drop of the ‘doom’ riff all the more spectacular. From there it’s a hair-raising and beautifully electric to the finish.
Take a listen to “Doomcrash” below or on streaming platforms.
deathcrash’s debut album Return comes out on January 28 through untitled (recs).
You can catch them on Bandcamp, Twitter, Facebook and Instagram, and, if you’re in the UK, see them live at these dates next year:
FEBRUARY
6 – Bristol, Rough Trade
11 – Sheffield, Record Junkee
12 – Liverpool, The Shipping Forecast
13 – Glasgow, Hug & Pint
16 – Birmingham, DeadWax
17 – Cambridge, Portland Arms
18 – Brighton, Green Door Store
19 – Margate, Elsewhere
20 – Birmingham, Hare and Hounds
24 – London, Chats Palace
APRIL
2 – Manchester, Fair Play Festival
3 – Leicester, Duffy’s
22 – Preston, Vernal Equinox Festival
