Eternal Fuzz, Nostalgia: Hum under the Floorboards
Lest the tonally-minded New Jersey four-piece be accused of not living up to the title of what might rightly — and might wrongly, so don’t quote me — be considered their debut LP, Nostalgia, the CD version of the release contains no fewer than six bonus tracks, culled from a June 2012 session dubbed Camp Fuzz. Those cuts add another 19 minutes to Nostalgia‘s otherwise manageable 45, which isn’t enough to push the limits of the format, but is enough that, if you’re going to take on the full 63-minute Nostalgia/Camp Fuzz listening experience, it’s worth being aware of the commitment one is making.
Taken on their own, the nine songs of Nostalgia proper find Eternal Fuzz exploring melodically resonant ground somewhere between post-rock and more densely-packed sludge, guitar and bass grit meeting with melodic vocals that at times, as on “Deep Fuzz Nebula,” recall a slower-paced Floor, the oddly credited lineup of Joe (general council), Kyle (recycling officer), Mike (party planning commissioner) and Luke (archivist) working in harmonized or near-harmonized vocal layers atop large-sounding roll, what might otherwise be a harsh sound if it played to screamy expectations proving oddly soothing — a lullaby of low end and melodic push, or at least it seems on the surface, since if one digs deeper into the crooning of the standout “Sea Change,” the lyrics, “Anyone with half a brain can see we’re fucked” and the repeated “can see we’re fucked,” are plain enough to the ear, and with the titular pun potentially referencing environmental impacts of climate change, the associations are anything but soothing. So be it.
The marriage of opposites there and elsewhere throughout Nostalgia only serves to enhance the listening experience overall, the band careening through lumber and plod on opener “Closer (Slugnaut) Fleet,” the aforementioned “Deep Fuzz Nebula” and subsequent, chug-happy “Closer Beings,” but subtly working off a punkish edge on the following “Terraessence,” a version of which also appeared on Camp Fuzz, which was previously released digitally. Album-finale “Thrash the Snakepipe,” which seems to pull together space-stoner and skater themes lyrically, also appeared in a prior incarnation on Camp Fuzz, and if the jump in recording quality between the Nostalgia versions and the preceding ones is anything to go by, the development in Eternal Fuzz‘s sound has been significant over the last several years. “Terraessence” cuts down the runtime and ups the energy level, a steady, upbeat rumble giving way to quiet as it passes the midpoint and then igniting a slower rollout as it moves toward the finish and bleed into “Sea Change,” the structure of which is likewise linear and the rhythm of which holds firm to the momentum the band have thus far built.
That momentum is considerable, especially taking into account the snail’s-pace tempos at which they seem comfortable despite, at times on “Closer (Slugnaut) Fleet,” sounding like they’re struggling against an impulse to move faster, and it continues into the loud/quiet trades of “Moody Hum,” which on the first couple listens might easily get lost behind “Sea Change,” but in the end earns the attention its airy guitar squibblies seem to be demanding. Together with “Astral Tractor Beam,” which follows, “Moody Hum” brings about a somewhat different look from the band, who because the vocals are so singularly melodic in their approach — a later-Isis style adding post-metal vibes throughout — at first come across as unipolar, but are actually working to offer a variety of moods.
“Atomic Beauty,” at 6:10, is the longest cut since “Closer Beings” (which is the longest on the album proper at 6:15) and builds tension over its first 90 seconds before unfolding its full tonal breadth, and cuts out at the halfway mark to cycle through again, this time from minimalism to the roll over a quicker span, ending in feedback to make room for “Thrash the Snakepipe,” a return to faster pacing and and Floored vibes, the almost poppy sound Eternal Fuzz elicit in the central verse riff underscoring the smoothness with which they’ve been able all along to pull together their stylistic blend. “Thrash the Snakepipe” is a charming finish, but hardly the end, with the entirety of Camp Fuzz (minus the original versions of “Terraessence” and “Thrash the Snakepipe”) still to follow, beginning with the three-minute, the opening stick clicks of which signal the shift to a live-in-studio feel that is maintained all throughout “Thok’Nor” and the ensuing tracks, which on average are shorter than their Nostalgia counterparts preceding, but carry a similar focus on tone and melody, “Mike Conover” dooming out more than the 2:09 “Aglow and Rampant” but closer “Earth/II-IV The Road” being arguably the most progressive of the bunch.
Camp Fuzz, with the two not-included-on-disc tracks, is available from the band as a name-your-price download, but being tossed on the disc in its entirety adds to the titular feel of Nostalgia and highlights the notion that the album is that much more special to the band with those cuts on there. It having been six years since they got their start in 2009 with the “Closer Beings” single and four since they issued their encouraging [Demo] (review here) in 2011, it makes sense that Eternal Fuzz would want to put as much as they had into the finished product here because who knows when, or if, they’ll get the chance to do this all again. On that level, it’s entirely possible Nostalgia takes its name from the band’s future vision of it as from any backward-looking they might be doing in the now, and while time invariably brings scrutiny to any creative work, especially by those who made it, I don’t hear anything in these songs that wouldn’t be worth remembering fondly.
Eternal Fuzz, Nostalgia (2015)
Eternal Fuzz on Thee Facebooks
Tags: Cranbury Township, Eternal Fuzz, Eternal Fuzz Nostalgia, New Jersey, Nostalgia, Unsigned bands
