Chicago duo
Earring's songs are mired in sludge, constantly feeling like they're being bogged down by thick layers of oppressive muck. Alexander Otake's sloppily bashed drumming lumbers along like a woolly mammoth while Jason Balla's baritone voice moans lethargically through an echo chamber as he coaxes brownish-gray clouds of soot from his guitar amp. The group sound nothing like sludge metal, however; as loud and plodding as the music sounds, there's not enough bass weight to justify the "heavy" descriptor. They're much closer to the foggier end of '90s shoegaze and slowcore, with enough wheezing distortion and bleary vocals to bring 2000s noise-rock bands like
Mouthus to mind. With the exception of drumless, drifting interlude "Swoon," however,
Earring sound structured rather than chaotic and untethered. The music itself might sound lazy, careless, drunk, blurry, and exhausted, but the songs do seem to have a deliberate flow to them. It might be a stretch to say that they have proper verses or choruses, but there are certainly well-timed moments where the music gets more explosive, or at least hits some sort of peak. Songs like "Sunset Forever," "Pure Pleasure," and the seven-minute closer "Midnight Pave" resemble a more blown-out
Red House Painters, and are just as gloomy, but there's still a hint of light seeping through the smog. "Smile Like Hell" tries as hard as it possibly can to do just that, and the shorter, more uptempo "Black Chalk" seems closer to the realm of post-
Spacemen 3 neo-psychedelia, and there's a flash of excitement in that. The album clearly won't appeal to audiophiles stubbornly hung up on pristine production values or flawless musicianship, or anyone who simply doesn't understand why anyone enjoys such depressed-sounding music. With that necessary disclaimer out of the way, Tunn Star is an impressive, sometimes deeply affecting album of broken-down melancholia. ~ Paul Simpson