WyndRider Premiere “Creator”; Self-Titled Debut Out March 31
One year to the day from playing their first show, on March 31, 2023, Tennessee rollers WyndRider will make their self-titled debut. They’ll play a show to celebrate the release too, and they’ve given themselves an occasion worth marking. WyndRider runs eight songs and 43 minutes of heavy, fuzzed-out blues heft, leaning at times into doom as on “Strangled by Smoke,” and is Sabbathian in the winter without directly coping anyone’s riffs. Guitarist Robbie Willis leads the way with warm and weighted guitar tones, while vocalist Chloe Gould croons with command and purpose over the fluidity of could-be-higher-in-the-mix bassist Joshuwah Herald (to be fair, I almost always think bass could be mixed higher) and drummer Richard Bucher, the album’s tracklisting split into two sides, each bookended by longer pieces with two shorter ones between; a method that gives each half of an intended vinyl record its own flow and adds depth to the persona of the album on the whole.
And while there’s a definite sense of nascence in WyndRider‘s WyndRider — they’re a new band and they sound like one; no, I don’t think that’s a bad thing — what comes through more as opener and prior single “Pit Witch” kicks its tempo late is a solid sense that they know of what they riff. I get Acid King vibes off the nodding second cut “Snake Children,” and especially done as well as it is here, that’s never something to complain about.
The production is raw, but clear enough certainly to give an idea of their volume if not the full breadth of their sound as it might feel from a stage. Willis builds walls of fuzz throughout, and with some of the effects on Gould‘s vocals on “Snake Children” and “Creator” (premiering below) and others, the impression is just short of a psychedelic wash, and with the bluesy underpinnings of her delivery, the band’s roots in Iommic methods and their willingness to toy with classic heavy rock and metal in a malleable balance of elements, they’re never quite only-one-thing sonically, and that suits them.
“Creator” broods and lumbers in its verse almost like Candlemass until all seems to take a step back for the guitar solo, and Gould builds a hook in that (purposeful) mire that adds to the momentum of the two songs prior and makes the arrival of “Strangled by Smoke” feel like the righteous moment of mini-culmination that it is, the side A capper layering solos on a long fade to end after a vital and welcome, languid procession that feels all the more tapped into aural largesse for the spaciousness it’s granted. Sabbath in winter, slow, bluesy, loosely ethereal but more concerned ultimately with terrestrial groove than otherworldly presentation. That is, stoner as they may be, there’s little play toward cultistry here, and Gould as a fronting presence is powerful enough that any such witchy trappings would be superfluous. The songs do the work on their own without needing to be oversold.
That straightforwardness of execution and lack of pretense are both assets working in the band’s favor here and signs of forward potential as they grow beyond this first year. The slide into the solo in “Mother in Horns,” for example, nails it. The bass is there under the guitar, fuzzed to the nines, and a slow start-stop resumes for the next verse with a marked smoothness, though admittedly, in the longer track there’s room for more setup. In any case, WyndRider pick up where side A left off, and in a linear format (i.e., digital or CD), the movement from “Strangled by Smoke” into “Mother in Horns” gives the album’s middle a density that suits it well, as though the band were issuing the invitation, “everybody dig in.”
This rolling continues into “Electrophilia,” which may or may not actually be named in honor of Electric Wizard but definitely hints that way in terms of its verse riff, complemented and fleshed out as it is by a more angular high-to-low in the chorus. Set to a structure similar to “Snake Children” earlier, “Electrophilia” is nonetheless different enough to get by, and honestly, if you’re not on board with WyndRider by then and duly hypnotized, you’ve probably already stopped listening. Herald leads through the penultimate interlude “Sleeping Wizard” with ambient guitar noise surrounding — there’s some sense of competition there for ground; something that will ease over time on subsequent outings — and the seven-minute “Space Paper Acid Saloon” arrives suitably molten before its full volume kicks in, the central riff working at a pace deceptively quick with upstrummed-sounding jabs behind Gould‘s verse, sounding very much like they knew it was going to be the closer while they were still writing it.
At the three-minute mark, “Space Paper Acid Saloon” moves into more of a chugging shuffle, carrying through to a twisting solo then back to another verse and evening out again before a solo section holds onto its resonant psychedelic effects while the song works through its final measures, the band having gone as far out as they were going to go and returned no worse for the wear. There are lessons to be learned from WyndRider in terms of dynamic and the band settling into and exploring their sound, but the four-piece give hints at where they’re headed sound-wise, perhaps into broader-reaching heavy psych blues with more of a readiness to loosen structural reins, and offer plenty of arguments in favor of present engagement as well as potential future output. That is, don’t worry, the record rocks. And with it, WyndRider set themselves on a course of craft that will be familiar to genre heads in some of its riffs, but distinct in its take and a more than encouraging starting point. There’s a lot to like.
You’ll find “Creator” premiering on the player below, followed by some more preliminaries about the album, courtesy of the band.
Enjoy:
WyndRider, “Creator” track premiere
WyndRider on “Creator”:
“This was one of the first songs that we wrote. The end of the world as we know it is something that everyone fears. Creator bestows the fear that we are doomed and nothing can save us.”
Album release March 31, 2023 10pm EST. Live show for album release March 31 at The Hideaway in Johnson City, TN and April 1 at the Brickyard in Knoxville, TN. Full album and physical copies will be available exclusively on Bandcamp with select songs on other streaming platforms.
Recorded, Mixed and Mastered by The Wizard Productions. Album Cover Art By Novendrika Pratama. Stoner Doom from the Mountains of East Tennessee. First show played on March 31, 2022. Singles “Electrophilia” (demo) and “Pit Witch” (from the album) currently on YouTube, Bandcamp, and all streaming sites.
Merchandise available on Bandcamp: https://wyndrider.bandcamp.com/merch
Upcoming dates:
March 17 Nashville, TN 404 Bar and Grill
April 13 Lexington, KY Green Lantern
April 14 Cincinnati, OH The Comet
WyndRider tracklisting:
1. Pit Witch 6:36
2. Snake Children 4:31
3. Creator 4:20
4. Strangled by Smoke 6:41
5. Mother in Horns 6:29
6. Electrophilia 4:35
7. Sleeping Wizard 2:44
8. Space Paper Acid Saloon 7:23
WyndRider are:
Chloe Gould (Vocals)
Robbie Willis (Guitar)
Richard Bucher (Drums)
Joshuwah Herald (Bass)
(Band photo by Jason Vapor)
Tags: self-titled, Tennessee, WyndRider, WyndRider Self-titled
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