Review & Video Premiere: King Buffalo, Regenerator
[Click play above to stream King Buffalo’s video premiere for ‘Hours’ from their Regenerator LP, out Sept. 2 through the band and Stickman Records in Europe.]
Regenerator is a culmination. As the third in King Buffalo‘s pandemic-era trilogy behind 2021’s Acheron (review here) and the prior The Burden of Restlessness (review here), it caps a narrative of growth and exploration while also offering its own persona in sound and the promise of even further creative evolution on the part of the Rochester, New York, trio. Their movement across these three albums, written together and each captured in a somehow-differing manner — the seven-song/43-minute Regenerator was recorded at their usual writing/rehearsal spot, the Main Street Armory, and adds a new thread to the emergence of guitarist/vocalist Sean McVay (also synth) as a producer, engineer and mixer as well as frontman — is such that King Buffalo‘s sound is likewise able to incorporate hard-hitting heavy prog rife with tension in its chugging and lyrical seethe, and ultra-fluid, colorful and organic acid jams fueled by the chemistry between McVay, bassist Dan Reynolds (also synth) and drummer Scott Donaldson, far-out space rock and more terrestrial songcraft. Patient or urgent, Regenerator, Acheron and The Burden of Restlessness — all culled from a single, tour-less period of writing during covid-19 lockdown in Summer 2020 — demonstrate that even in the lowest of times, art can provide release, escape, comfort, catharsis and perspective.
Consider the interplay of McVay‘s drifting guitar on “Avalon” here, or the way in which the sweeping back and forth of “Mercury” earlier speaks to the ethereal prog of The Burden of Restlessness with a brighter point of view. These songs may have come from the same general time of construction, but the material on Regenerator harnesses a breadth that even for King Buffalo feels new no matter how it might draw from what they’ve done before. The leadoff title-track — longest inclusion at 9:38 (immediate points) and a bookend with closer “Firmament” (9:16) — throws open the doors of expectation, fading in on a line of ambient keys that become the preface to what seems like a steady-enough-for-them procession through a verse and a few wah-drenched leads and instead departs those structural confines for an undulating and animated jam.
“Regenerator” is peppered with McVay‘s nuanced soloing, pushed through by Donaldson‘s drums, and held together by Reynolds‘ bass in a way that is a classic power trio dynamic and thoroughly King Buffalo‘s own as they shimmer into fifth-album maturity in the entirely instrumental second half of the song, hypnotically jamming so as to carry the mood over into the subsequent pairing of “Mercury” (4:30) and “Hours” (4:57), two shorter pieces, which one might argue for as the most straight-ahead on the record, but ultimately present their own intentions, as “Mercury” converges lightly anxious noodling with more surging choruses, flowing into “Hours,” which careens through its own kosmiche temporal dimensionality, the depth of mix allowing each instrument its place while manifesting the sense of forward-going of the whole.
Like much of what surrounds, it makes its not-insignificant momentum a part of the greater atmosphere, Regenerator seeming to reach out to new ground in melding prog and psych, structured heavy rock songcraft and more open jamming — a keys-and-drums (maybe that’s guitar) break in the middle of “Hours” bringing around a satisfying resurgence before an instrumental return to a modified version of the verse rounds out, subtly reaffirming the plotted nature that underlies all but the most willfully out-there King Buffalo jams. That is to say, they’re a band with rules until they decide to break them.
So much the better, since “Interlude” seems to do precisely that. With a guitar figure at its core that reminds of some of the band’s shared stylistic space with All Them Witches — whose Ben McLeod produced 2018’s Longing to Be the Mountain (review here) — it is also a showcase for McVay vocally, volume swelling and receding behind him as he quietly but confidently sings through subdued lines, more in their presentation than the title of the song might lead one to believe, but something that on, say, the synthy interlude “Ecliptic” from 2020’s Dead Star EP (review here), the group weren’t yet so bold as to attempt. Always changing, persistent in their evolution.
And at the close of the vinyl’s side A, “Interlude” further serves to set up the masterful execution of the final three tracks of Regenerator, the six-minute pair of “Mammoth” and “Avalon” and the aforementioned nine-minute finale, “Firmament,” a title that’s suitably evocative of both celestial and foundational premises. In these songs, King Buffalo effectively summarize the movement that’s taken place over the last year-plus as The Burden of Restlessness has given way to Acheron and Regenerator, encapsulate the band they’ve become and keep their eyes focused on their future. In the 21 minutes of Regenerator‘s side B, King Buffalo are more progressive, richer and more realized in their sound than they’ve ever been. It begins as “Mammoth” unfurls with sway and swing toward the vocal-driven-but-sans-lyrics ending that inevitably comes to define the entire song.
This is clear evidence of McVay‘s burgeoning stage and studio presence as someone who is as much vocalist/guitarist as guitarist/vocalist, and is soon enough confirmed by the layered harmonies of “Avalon,” the psych aspects of which feel directly linked to Acheron for more than the similar verbiage, but are duly broadened in scope to match the moment of arrival that stands for all three records as much as this one alone. I don’t know if that’s hyperbole or not and I don’t care. If this is King Buffalo in 2022, and the obvious message is that it is, then they are the most essential band under 40 in the American heavy underground.
They have put in the work to become so on every level, whether that’s pushing themselves stylistically and physically as players to grow and grow together, or touring and handling the business management realities of being a full-time group. “Firmament” closes Regenerator with a structure not so different from its counterpart title-track back at the beginning, but the soft-guitar/vulnerable-vocal intro nonetheless is a standout moment before a thicker and finally more driving shove takes hold with the entry of Donaldson and Reynolds. The hook, “I have become one with the (great eternal blue) sky/Everything’s one/Made new by the sun (firmament’s eye),” is likewise meditative and memorable, clever in its rhyme swap, and true to an ongoing thread in McVay‘s lyrics of ethereal communion with the natural world. Delivered twice in succession — the lines slightly changed as indicated by the parentheses — it leads to a telltale chug that acts as dogwhistle to let the audience know there’s no coming back from where they’re going next.
“Firmament” indeed speaks of heavens in its instrumentalist drift and recalls restlessness in its still-vibrant repetitions. A current of synth running alongside, the guitar weaves into and out of solos while Reynolds punches out highlight bass work, and at 8:02, the pace of the snare picks up to signal the change to the last stage of the build. It is not overblown, or hackneyed, or telegraphed, but its gallop is vital and its cold finish completes the statement of Regenerator so as to lay claim to the entirety of King Buffalo‘s past to this point as a launchpad for what they might do next. Five full-lengths in six years, plus various EPs and other recordings, unflinching tour-born chemistry, and so on, and their potential still seems to be among their greatest assets as they close this trilogy and invariably continue to progress. Regenerator is beautiful, and complete.
King Buffalo on tour
UK/EU
7/21 London, UK @ Oslo
7/22 Nijmegen, NL @ Valkhof Festival
7/23 Lille, FR @ THE BLACK LAB
7/24 Selestat, FR @ Rock Your Brain fest
7/25 Munich, DE @ Free & Easy
7/27 Dresden, DE @Chemiefabrik
7/26 Passau, DE @ Zauberberg
7/28 Herzberg, DE @ Herzberg Festival
7/29 Hamburg, DE @ Lazy Bones Festival
7/30 Michelau, DE @ Rock Im Wald
7/31 Berlin, DE @ Lido
8/2 Warsaw, POL @ Hydrozagadka
8/3 Krakow, POL @ Klub Alchemia
8/4 Vienna, AT @ Arena
8/5 Waldhausen, AT @ Lake On Fire
8/6 Beelen, DE @ Krach Am Bach
8/8 Karlsruhe, DE @ P8
8/9 Zurich, CH @ Mascotte
8/10 Bruson, CH @ PALP Festival
8/11 Moledo, POR @ Sonic Blast Festival
8/12 Kortrijk, BE @ Alcatraz Festival
8/13 Horsens, DK @ JAILBREAK
US/Canada
9/8 Burlington, VT @ Higher Ground
9/9 Hamden, CT @ Space Ballroom
9/10 Buffalo, NY @ Town Ballroom
9/16 Columbus, OH @ A&R Music Bar
9/17 Cincinnati, OH @ Madison Live
9/18 Louisville, KY @ Zanzabar
9/20 Nashville, TN @ Exit/In
9/22 Dallas, TX @ Club Dada
9/23 Austin, TX @ Antones
9/24 Houston, TX @ White Oak
9/25 New Orleans, LA @ Gasa Gasa
9/27 Atlanta, GA @ Masquerade
9/28 Carrboro, NC @ Cat’s Cradle
9/29 Baltimore, MD @ Ottobar
9/30 Philadelphia, PA @ First Unitarian Church
10/1 Brooklyn, NY @ Music Hall of Williamsburg
10/13 Toronto, ON @ Velvet Underground
10/14 Ottawa, ON @ Club SAW
10/15 Montreal, QC @ Bar Le Ritz
10/25 Bloomington, IL @ Nightshop
10/26 Kansas City, MO @ Recordbar
10/28 Albuquerque, NM @ Launchpad
10/29 Phoenix, AZ @ Rebel Lounge
10/31 San Diego, CA @ Soda Bar
11/1 Los Angeles, CA @ Teragram
11/2 San Francisco, CA @ The Chapel
11/4 Seattle, WA @ Neumos
11/5 Vancouver, BC @ Rickshaw
11/7 Portland, OR @ Douglas Fir Lounge
11/8 Boise, ID @ The Olympic
11/9 Salt Lake City, UT @ Urban Lounge
11/11 Denver, CO @ Gothic Theatre
11/12 Fort Collins, CO @ Aggie Theatre
11/14 Omaha, NE @ Slowdown Front Room
11/15 Minneapolis, MN @ Fine Line
11/16 Madison, WI @ High Noon
11/17 Chicago, IL @ Sleeping Village
11/18 Chicago, IL @ Sleeping Village
11/19 Grand Rapids, MI @ The Stache
King Buffalo, Regenerator (2022)
;
Tags: King Buffalo, King Buffalo Regenerator, New York, Regenerator, Rochester, Stickman Records
Had to miss them last night, pretty bummed out about it.