Buzzard Posts “Crushing Burden of Despair” Video; Second LP Mean Bone Due in 2025
With the stated intention of bridging gaps between traditionalist folk and doom Massachusetts-based Christopher Thomas Elliott made his debut operating under the Buzzard moniker earlier this year with the aptly named full-length, Doom Folk (review here). If you missed it among the glut of 2024 offerings in various styles under the umbrella of ‘heavy’ microgenres, you might be forgiven. There’s been no great hype push, no social media content-providing to keep the songs in listeners’ algorithms. It’s almost like they just want to make and release music without having to hock wares in the open market of Reels. Imagine such a thing.
“Crushing Burden of Despair,” a new Buzzard single posted the other day, is outwardly heavier than was most of Doom Folk, though the album featured electric guitar along with acoustic as well. Here, it comes with dense bass and a swing of drums — programmed or not, I can’t tell — heralding more of a band-ish arrangement as a preface to a second long-player to come early next year, given the title Mean Bone. What’s held over is the groove and Elliott‘s plainspoken lyrics and singing style, and while based on Doom Folk, I wouldn’t expect Mean Bone to do just one thing the whole way through however many tracks it ultimately will boast, it’s plain to hear Buzzard laying claim to a broader scope of sound in “Crushing Burden of Despair” even as much of the personality of the album before is maintained in the track, which — you guessed it — is about living in America right now. So, yes, daring to be relevant amid an evolving sound. This tells me the record is something to look forward to.
In the interim, Doom Folk is getting a new, limited, bonus-track-inclusive CD pressing set to become available on Halloween — it’s October now, apparently — and the album itself has been remastered for the occasion. I’d be curious to hear that, and I would expect either way it’s still pretty raw, as that was part of the intent behind the recording in the first place. But if Mean Bone — as in the adage, “I don’t have a… in my body” — is going to delve into protest-doom as it evolves from out of the Americana bent of the first record, building on what I’d consider one of this year’s best and quirkiest debuts in new ways, count me in. I dig the hell out of this.
Lyric video follows here, and the Doom Folk stream is at the bottom of the post. Enjoy:
Buzzard, “Crushing Burden of Despair” lyric video
Greetings Doomcampers. I’m pleased to announce the Doom Folk Deluxe Expanded CD, due to lumber forth at the end of October:
* 12-track Doom Folk album freshly remastered
* 4-page booklet packed with Doom Folk lyrics
* 7 bonus tracks of pre-Buzzard dark Americana, including a grim rewrite of “O Death” with Lisa Austin on vocals.
* Limited to 100 copies
* Shipping 10/31/24
In the meantime, I just quietly slipped out a lyric video preview of the just-about-finished 2nd Buzzard LP, Mean Bone, due Spring of 2025: www.youtube.com/watch?v=68te6DhUM6c. Built around themes of human evil, social collapse, and environmental destruction, Mean Bone expands on morbid Americana to include brooding full-band Doom and Stoner metal.
Follow Buzzard on Bandcamp: https://buzzarddoomfolk.bandcamp.com
Stay sane and sick,
Chris
