White Suns: The Lower Way | 4ZZZ Brisbane 102.1FM

- Hailing from the bustling New York art scene, White Suns call themselves an “antirock band”. This stylistic choice, to reject the conventions of rock music has restricted them to a cult underground following, but has borne a back-catalogue of substantial music that finds itself somewhere between harsh noise and experimental rock and warrants more attention. Unsurprisingly, this approach has kept the uncompromising noise trio exceedingly unpredictable, since their formation around the beginning of the last decade. 2012’s Sinews and 2014’s Totem were face-melting, no wave-inspired noise rock releases, whereas on 2017’s Psychic Drift they opted for a more vivid industrial, power electronics sound.

This year the band have returned with The Lower Way which takes a step back to the noise rock the band released in the first half of the 2010s, but this step back in style doesn’t coincide with a regression in quality. They come through with a record that contains all of the challenging, cathartic noise of early White Suns releases, while still introducing plenty of fresh ideas.

They describe The Lower Way as “hybrid trash rock”, and while the “trash” tag certainly doesn’t do the music justice, the description makes sense. Rock purists will probably hate this album, and the detuned guitar feedback will probably scare more than a few people away. However, those guitars interact with a rhythm section designed by synths, processed percussions, and cut-up samples to produce captivating, inexorable walls of sound. And as daunting a record as this may be, the impressive recording and production of it rewards listeners as you begin to recognise the way the band are playing off one another, and make sense of the chaos within the dense walls of noise.

The Wreck is a standout track, which feels like a fusion of the brutal maelstrom of noise of their first few records and the more atmospheric Psychic Drift, yet it achieves this without losing any of the density of the sound. Vocalist Kevin Barry’s spoken word squalls desperately compete with the abrasive instrumentals and keep the entire album tense. The overwhelming cacophony of angst is something to behold, but White Suns music is too visceral for it to come across as whiney or cheesy.

Dawn Raid is an epic, albeit deeply unsettling cut. The wailing guitars evocatively convey the sounds of police sirens before the lyrics reflect on familiar themes of police brutality. The closing track, Tundra, initially sounds like a chaotic free jazz cut building to an intense climax before the record meanders to a close.

Much like White Suns’ earlier material, The Lower Way is a challenging record. I’ve found myself struggling to listen to the whole record in one sitting, but your engagement with the record is rewarded as you begin to unpack all of the detail within. The liberating, unconventional approach to rock music, the detuned guitars, the inspired sample choices and synth programming, the impressively pulsating processed percussion and an undercurrent of dystopic paranoia make The Lower Way a significant antirock achievement. In fact, it’s hard to remember many albums as “heavy” as this that aren’t metal. It certainly will not be for everyone, but for those that can tolerate brutal noise, this album and White Suns’ discography are worth approaching with an open mind.

- Jack Jones.
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