Review & Full EP Stream: Named by the Sun, Deathcap
Posted in audiObelisk, Reviews on April 26th, 2018 by JJ Koczan
[Click play above to stream Named by the Sun’s Deathcap EP in full. It out April 7 on Superhot Records and available now to preorder.]
“Band begets band” is a familiar enough story. A given group is going for a while and something happens or doesn’t happen to drive them apart, then some of the members from that band want to embark on a new project together. For London’s Named by the Sun, their immediate lineage finds them stemmed from defunct progressive heavy rockers Landskap, whose final album, III (review here), was issued in 2016. Landskap drummer Pat Casey joins George Pan on guitar in the new band, and with Chris West — also a Landskap alum, currently of Glanville, formerly of Stubb, Groan, and Trippy Wicked, etc. — on bass and engineering duties and Graham Brown on drums, the new outfit seems to have come together rather quickly to offer the initial 18-minute collection of three songs, which runs in order from shortest to longest and in true EP tradition feels intended to give just a sampling of where the band might ultimately be headed.
And in that, it succeeds easily, with “Dogfight,” “Solar Gain” and “The Mountain and the Moon” seeing some continuity from Landskap in terms of the overall thoughtfulness of their construction but veering out into their own territory with the dual-guitar harmonies, sans-keyboard approach, and so on. These aren’t ultimately make-or-break differences between Named by the Sun and three-quarters of its membership’s former outlet, but if there’s one thing that’s crucial to stress about Deathcap, it’s that it really does just feel like the beginnings of a new exploration. That is to say, the band sound like they’re just coming to life, and I wouldn’t expect that any issue or aesthetic point raised in these three songs is necessarily final. They will, one hopes, continue to grow from here.
Which is another familiar enough story, right? Band records a couple tracks to see what they’ve got and puts it out as a limited-type release to gain some traction and momentum going into their next offering, whatever it might be? The distinguishing factor Named by the Sun, then, needs to be the material itself. They’re a new band, sure, but the familiarity of the players with each other — Brown notwithstanding; I don’t any of the other three played in his other group, The Sound Machine, though I could be wrong on that — brings that distinction, and from the easy-riding pace set in “Dogfight,” which is quick to show off the harmonies between Pan and Casey before launching into a first solo that might otherwise take the place of a sung verse, through the more classically proggy interweavings of “The Mountain and the Moon,” their work remains a central driving force.
That said, as a fan of West‘s work across a swath of bands, I’m glad to hear him make an impression in the mix along with the two guitars, settling into the rhythm with Brown‘s creative drumming and fostering a groove of significant sway. There’s just a touch of NWOBHM in some of the harmonized guitar, but the vibe is more classically heavy rock than metal, which is something accomplished largely through tempo, and with a big rock finish, “Dogfight” rounds out sounding like hardly a battle at all. Rather, they’d be hard-pressed to sound less adversarial. Perhaps “Complete Agreement” wasn’t as exciting a title option. Nonetheless, that’s way more the vibe here than something so aggressive as either animals or airplanes clashing, and rather than work in contrast, the elements of “Dogfight” line up fluidly as an introduction that leads the way into the fade-up fuzz-lead scorch of “Solar Gain,” which with what might a slide guitar lead over its first riff has a swaggering classic rock feel.
The beginning of the track hints at a level of spaciousness that “Dogfight” steered away from, but the song ultimately nestles into a swing leading to its midsection, where the bass takes the fore to transition into a section of acoustic-guitar. Drums holding tension beneath, the foursome build by adding some electric back into the mix before shifting back into the central riff of the song and pushing “Solar Gain” forward into its payoff at about the five-minute mark before they return once more to the main figure to close out. At about seven and a half minutes, it has plenty of time to make the most from its turn from al laid back opening into more active push. In the fine tradition of instrumentalists like Karma to Burn — a methodological comparison more than a sonic one; there are, after all, two guitars here — Named by the Sun shift nimbly between riff to riff, and there does seem to be some space where vocals could fit if the band wanted them to, including after the halfway point when, not so dissimilar from “Solar Gain” before it, “The Mountain and the Moon” shifts to more soothing guitar and opens to a flowing electric solo and jam, dedicating its longer runtime to a worthy cause to be sure.
If there’s any reason I note places where vocals might fit, it’s not necessarily because I think the band needs a singer — they don’t — but only to underscore the point made earlier, which is that Named by the Sun don’t at all seem settled on what kind of reach and breadth they’ll ultimately have stylistically. What makes this exciting instead of disconcerting is the quality of the foundation they’ve laid in Deathcap, the chemistry and balance at work between the four of them, and the clarity and confidence with which they bring their intentions to life in the studio. One hopes that wherever they do end up heading in terms of style and songwriting, these factors remain consistent throughout their work, and they continue to push themselves creatively as they’ve so obviously done in establishing this group and this material. That one might drift mentally toward such future considerations is only further evidence of Deathcap having done its job as their debut EP — offering a sample of direction and craft that entices the listener to want to investigate more.
