If you’re prone to getting headaches from things like flashing lights, jumpy video or — I guess? — hard riffs, you’ll probably want to skip Rebreather‘s new video. The song is “Sicksicksick,” and it’s telling as to the ethic of the Ohio trio generally that it doesn’t even come up for air until more than two minutes into its total 3:13. The punk-rooted Youngstown sludgers made the clip, one assumes, to remind any and all of the righteousness of their late-2021 return long-player, The Line, its Width and the War Drone (review here), which was released through Aqualamb Records as their first full-length offering since 2009.

By all accounts, the world missed Rebreather more than Rebreather missed the world during that time. “Sicksicksick” opened the album with the decisive thud of Steven Gardner‘s drumming setting the foundation even before Barley Rantilla started in with the guitar or the bite of the first verse lines. Given necessary and appreciated density by Steve Wishnewski‘s bass, a later piece like “Residual Madness” offered despondent nod following the punker fuckall of “Choke on It,” and while you may have already seen the video for “Drown” (posted here) with  Gwyn Strang of fellow Ohioans Frayle (who are, like, a big deal now) sitting in on vocals, or caught the “Choke on It” clip when it premiered here, well, this is some shit you haven’t seen yet, and until they do one for “Silent H” or “It Comes in Threes” — by the way, please do — it’s my excuse to put the album on for this afternoon and anything else is a bonus.

I’ve got a Rebreather shirt in my Bandcamp cart. I think The Patient Mrs. gets paid on Friday. Gonna make that happen. So I guess that’s why bands put out videos. Maybe you should check it out too and see if maybe you also want to upgrade your wardrobe. There’s also the A Brief History Remastered compilation that’s $10 whether you buy the disc or just the DL. At that point, the plastic is its own excuse for being.

Enjoy the clip. I asked Rantilla for a few words on making it and he was kind enough to offer some comment, which you’ll find below the player.

Here goes:

Rebreather, “Sicksicksick” official video

Barley Rantilla on “Sicksicksick”:

This video is for the track “sicksicksick” from our album The Line, Its Width, and the War Drone. We shot it in our old practice space with three cameras fastened to one tripod. Our friend Johnny Eckard stood in the middle of the room rotating the cameras as we played through the song. It was my first time ever editing video, so it was a huge learning experience for me. I leaned on Steve Wishnewski (bass) for his editing knowledge to get me through all of my wrong moves. Overall, it was a pretty fun puzzle to put together.

Rebreather is:
Barley Rantilla – Guitars and Vocals
Steven Gardner – Drums
Steve Wishnewski – Bass

Rebreather, The Line, its Width and the War Drone (2021)

Rebreather, A Brief History Remastered (2021)

Rebreather on Facebook

Rebreather on Instagram

Rebreather on Bandcamp

Rebreather website

Aqualamb Records website

Aqualamb Records on Bandcamp

Aqualamb Records on Facebook

Aqualamb Records on Instagram

The Obelisk Questionnaire is a series of open questions intended to give the answerer an opportunity to explore these ideas and stories from their life as deeply as they choose. Answers can be short or long, and that reveals something in itself, but the most important factor is honesty.

Based on the Proust Questionnaire, the goal over time is to show a diverse range of perspectives as those who take part bring their own points of view to answering the same questions. To see all The Obelisk Questionnaire posts, click here.

Thank you for reading and thanks to all who participate.

The Obelisk Questionnaire: Barley Rantilla of Rebreather

—

How do you define what you do and how did you come to do it?

I turn my guitar amps up and holler a bunch. It feels real good the whole time I’m plugged in. Super glutinous, masturbatory, self-serving… but incredibly cathartic. I’m going deaf, my head hurts when I stop, and sometimes I’m a little sad afterwards. But, while its happening, it’s the best and I never want it to stop. When I was a little kid, my cousin let me hold his electric guitar while it was plugged into some tiny practice amp and the amount of feedback and noise screaming out of that speaker completely captivated me. It would be years later that my dad ended up getting me my first guitar and several years after that I got ahold of my first tube amp. From that point on, it’s been a challenge to harness that feedback and noise and try to turn it into music.

Describe your first musical memory.

My parents were really into a wide range of music and my dad always had piles of records to dig through. On Saturday mornings, my brothers and I would wake up early and spin Nilsson albums or Rick Wakeman’s “Journey to the Centre of the Earth” as the soundtracks to us destroying our Star Wars action figures in the living room. I feel bad for how many scratches we probably put on all those albums. Fortunately, my parents were less concerned with the safety of the albums and more stoked on us enjoying them.

Describe your best musical memory to date.

Too many “best music” memories.

Being a little kid and staying at my grandparent’s house. They had basic cable, so I was gonna get to watch MTV all day long… YES!!! So stoked on music videos as a kid. The Clash, Van Halen, RUN DMC, fucking Thriller! Michael Jackson’s Thriller! Holy shit! A horror music video… nuts!

Seeing my first “underground” punk shows in a dirty basement bar… crazy looking people everywhere… the smell weed, stale beer, and patchouli. I still wear patchouli because it reminds me of those nights.

Playing shows with my friends. Watching them go on stage and destroy the place… what could be better than that? I’ve been lucky enough to witness that an unbelievable amount of times. So crazy to be so proud and so jealous at the same time haha.

When was a time when a firmly held belief was tested?

Anytime you see someone rise to the top after working themselves to death. Believing in yourself is the most important part. I don’t think you’ll get anywhere without that.

Where do you feel artistic progression leads?

Man… ahhh… to Death. I think that’s where everything leads… haha. So… practice makes perfect, right. I think the more you do something, then obviously you should become more comfortable doing it. Therefore, I would assume that your comfort should allow you more freedoms with whatever you are doing artistically. So, hopefully it would lead to more depth, better expression, and more of an ability to convey whatever it is you are trying to convey.

How do you define success?

If you are happy and humble, then you have won. Feeling content is tough. If you can step back and be thankful for whatever you have, then you’re moving in the right direction.

What is something you have seen that you wish you hadn’t?

Well, I took my daughter to see Justin Bieber for her birthday… that was pretty bad. Also, I got roped into seeing some bible thumping Christian rock band when I was a little kid. The Christian rock band kept asking the crowd not to have premarital sex. Justin Bieber just kept talking about how sore his ankle was. I wish I hadn’t seen either of them, but I guess the Christian rock band seems worse. At least my daughter enjoyed Bieber. But shit… if I hadn’t had premarital sex, then I would have never had to see Justin Bieber… those christian rock band might be wiser than I thought.

Describe something you haven’t created yet that you’d like to create.

I’ve had this idea for a board game floating around in my head for years. Someday I will for sure embarrass myself by mocking up a prototype haha.

What do you believe is the most essential function of art?

To communicate emotion, mainly. It can be super subjective, but if you’re on the same wavelength, you can pick up on the intent, or even discover an intent that suits you. I think art can do a lot of things… it can teach, it can distract, it can provoke. But, in my opinion, inspiring some sort of feeling or emotion would be the most essential function of art.

Something non-musical that you’re looking forward to?

I’m always looking forward to hanging with friends and family. Whether it’s a vacation, a party, a night out, or just a chat… I’m always down.

https://www.facebook.com/rebreather-372407815879/
https://www.instagram.com/rebreather_band/
https://rebreather-ohio.bandcamp.com/
http://www.stevewishnewski.com/rebreather
http://www.aqualamb.org
http://www.aqualamb.bandcamp.com
http://www.facebook.com/aqualambrecords

Rebreather, The Line, Its Width, and The War Drone (2021)

Ohio noisemakers Rebreather return with their first full-length in 13 years, The Line, its Width and the War Drone, on Dec. 3. Out through Aqualamb Records, the offering was first announced in August, and at that time, a video was unveiled — also it involved actual veils — for the song “Drown” that saw the band collaborate with fellow Buckeye Staters Frayle, whose Gwyn Strang brought extra-witchly vibes to the intermittently bursting aggression of the atmospheric sludge behind her. By answering back now with “Choke on It” — premiering below — the three-piece of guitarist/vocalist Barley Rantilla, bassist Steve Wishnewski and drummer Steven Gardner bring into emphasis two essential truths about their cumbersomely-titled comebacker. First, it is a multifaceted beast of a record. Second, this band can fucking wail.

In both these things, The Line, its Width and the War Drone is largely consistent with where Rebreather left off, and hints of where they’re at today have been dropped since they started playing again, both with their 2018 self-titled EP (discussed here) and their earlier-2021 covers two-songer, Pets / Orange Crush (review here), for which they brought their spin to tracks by Porno for Pyros and R.E.M., respectively. The former shows up on the full-length as well — not so much “Orange Crush” — and it’s one more in the melee of shifts the trio present across the entirety, from the beginning punk-grown-up urgency of “Sick Sick Sick” through the languid, heavy post-rock unfurling of “It Comes in Threes,” which follows immediately, and down through the aptly-titled closer “Closer,” runs comes through like some kind of rawer Youngstown edition of the Desert Sessions crashed into indie rock whateverism. I thought it might be another cover. Maybe it is. It’s a big world. There’s a lot of songs in it. In any case, coming after “Pets,” as “Closer” does, the ’90s vibe runs strong, but again, Rebreather are not at all a do-one-thing kind of outfit, and nearly 20 years on from their debut, their fifth long-player is a welcome refresh of their particular approach.

“Choke on It” arrives at the probable end of a vinyl’s side A, and in a linear format is part of a crucial midsection to the record. It is preceded by “Silent H,” which runs just under five minutes and is likewise broad in echo and weighted in tone. There are guest vocals — these by Shy Kennedy of Pittsburgh’s Horehound — that add to the patient march, peppered with chugging builds and moving to a culmination marked by a higher-register feedback tone (as well as a lower one) that follows a payoff wash that, to call it noise would be doing a disservice to its intentional fullness. On the other hand, “Choke on It” is as raw and intense as The Line, its Width and the War Drone gets, and no less purposeful in that. Gardner‘s drums are furious to coincide with Rantilla‘s frantic vocals, and the low end that steps forward in the take-a-breath bridge is a subtle foreshadow of things to come as side B launches with “Residual Madness,” a song atmo-sludge enough to play slow motion off of Neurosis “Stones From the Sky” while set atop a bed of feedback that is there at the outset, runs through much of the song’s six and a half minutes, and is the final piece to end, providing a direct transition into “Drown” as the start of an even-more-dug-in side B.

What do we learn? The core lesson of Rebreather is that Rebreather are underrated. They always were. In an age before post-metal happened, they already had their own take on it, and as time has gone on, the emergence progressive heavy microgenres has only proven them right. What’s better, The Line, its Width and the War Drone has none of the pretense to which it would probably be entitled. Wishnewski, Rantilla and Gardner hit it with an attitude that’s straightforward, sans-bullshit and this-is-who-we-are enough to birth any number of wax-poetic Rust Belt analogies. No time for that garbage. There’s a song to stream.

If The Line, its Width and the War Drone is your first exposure to Rebreather, awesome. It’ll make a great place to start. Their Bandcamp has all their past work, for further investigative purposes.

Enjoy “Choke on It” below:

Rebreather, “Choke on It” video premiere

Barley Rantilla on “Choke on It”:

Steve Wish (Steve Wishnewski, bass) came up with the initial riffs and title for “Choke on It.” We needed a good finale for the song, so we pulled a riff out of a song Gardner and I had been jamming on years earlier and Frankenstein-ed it together. It worked perfectly. The lyrics are all over the place; I worked backward from the title. The dumbed-down explanation would be a theme of trying to get along better with the people around you. About listening more and thinking more about what you’re saying. Choke on those words you wanna spit out initially.

The “Choke on It” video was really a trial for a filming strategy that we had devised. Attach three cameras in a triangular pattern, aim one at each of us, and randomly turn them as we record. This way, we will all be constantly shuffling around the screen. It was kinda last minute, but we hit up a few friends, went to Westside Bowl, and set up on their patio. We asked our friends to “act as usual while we stare at these cameras.” We shot three takes and liked them all, so we decided to use nine frames instead of three. We did this two hours before we shot the “Drown” video with Frayle. Apologies to them for us showing up a bit tipsy. Such a fun day.

Preorder: https://rebreather-ohio.bandcamp.com/album/the-line-it-s-width-and-the-war-drone

Produced by Rebreather and mastered by Carl Saff (John Carpenter, Bongzilla, Elder), ‘The Line, Its Width, and the War Drone’ takes trickles from both the band’s past releases and 20 years experience and coalesces the trio’s “cave pop” into a roaring river of soaring sound. Flush with oddly accessible, dazzlingly tight metalcraft, ominous, propulsive basslines, and a rampaging rhythmic verve, the record’s widescreen sheen gleams with a mercurial mystique befitting of only the most tight-knit, veteran units. Today, Rebreather releases a video for the new song, “Drown”, which is a true collaboration with fellow Ohioans and Aqualamb lablemates Frayle.

‘The Line, Its Width, and the War Drone’ track listing:
1.) Sicksicksick
2.) It Comes In Three’s
3.) Silent H
4.) Choke On It
5.) Residual Madness
6.) Drown
7.) Pets (Porno for Pyros cover)
8.) Closer

Rebreather is:
Barley Rantilla – Guitars and Vocals
Steven Gardner – Drums
Steve Wishnewski – Bass

Rebreather, The Line, its Width and the War Drone (2021)

Rebreather on Facebook

Rebreather on Instagram

Rebreather on Bandcamp

Rebreather website

Aqualamb Records website

Aqualamb Records on Bandcamp

Aqualamb Records on Facebook

Aqualamb Records on Instagram

It’s all fun and games until the hypnotized backyard-pool baptism turns sinister. So it goes in the new Rebreather video for the atmospheric and heavy “Drown,” a first single from the band’s first full-length since 2008’s Sunflower. They’ve come a long way in that time, and following the 2018 self-titled EP (discussed here) that marked the Youngstown, Ohio, trio’s return to activity and their earlier-2021 covers two-songer (review here), the cumbersomely titled The Line, its Width and the War Drone will see release on Dec. 3 through Aqualamb in the imprint’s established art-book format. Sign me up.

“Drown” brings a collaboration with Frayle, who are also signed to Aqualamb, and whose Gwyn Strang drowns Rebreather in the aforementioned video. I guess there are worse ways to go? Either way, the track unfolds over seven minutes with an impact-minded chorus and a patience in craft and melody prefaced by the prior covers (one of which is included on the LP as well) that makes me all the more curious to hear what they’ve come up with elsewhere on the release. A December arrival puts The Line, its Width and the War Drone just a month shy of the 2022, which will be the 20th anniversary of Rebreather‘s 2002 debut, Need Another Seven Astronauts, which one continues to remember fondly.

The years pass.

Video and song are awesome and at the bottom of the post. Looking forward to the album. Here’s details from the PR wire:

Rebreather to Release New LP, ‘The Line, Its Width, and the War Drone’, December 3

Ohio Noise Rock Trio Teams Up with Labelmates Frayle on Stunning New Song/Video “Drown”

Youngstown, Ohio noise rock / sludge metal band Rebreather creates punishing, tenacious, and metallic music that seethes and breathes. More than a barrage of stark noise and earthen sludge, Rebreather creates songs; glorious, winding songs that allow dissonant, harmonic guitar/bass tones to soothe before they strike, drumming that builds and then batters, and vocals that display a powerful, shimmering vulnerability. On December 3, Rebreather will release its fifth full-length LP, ‘The Line, Its Width, and the War Drone’, via Aqualamb Records. Pre-orders are live at Aqualamb.org.

Produced by Rebreather and mastered by Carl Saff (John Carpenter, Bongzilla, Elder), ‘The Line, Its Width, and the War Drone’ takes trickles from both the band’s past releases and 20 years experience and coalesces the trio’s “cave pop” into a roaring river of soaring sound. Flush with oddly accessible, dazzlingly tight metalcraft, ominous, propulsive basslines, and a rampaging rhythmic verve, the record’s widescreen sheen gleams with a mercurial mystique befitting of only the most tight-knit, veteran units. Today, Rebreather releases a video for the new song, “Drown”, which is a true collaboration with fellow Ohioans and Aqualamb lablemates Frayle.

“We finished recording “Drown” and got through the overdubs, but there was a sense that it felt like just a little something was missing,” says Rebreather guitarist/vocalist Barley Rantilla. “We ended up shooting what we had finished over to our friends Sean and Gwyn to see if they were interested in adding some of their “Frayle” magic to it. When they sent back the demo of what they wanted to add, we were blown away. This was not only “our” song anymore…it was totally possessed by Frayle. Gwyn’s vocals added such a great dark melody and Sean’s guitar layers pushed everything into the right space. A couple weeks later, Sean hit us up with an idea to film a video for the song. Shooting was cool. We definitely inhaled more than enough water being drowned by Gwyn, but we all survived in the end.”

Frayle vocalist Gwyn Strang adds, “We were excited when Rebreather asked us to collaborate with them on their song, “Drown”. Adding our layers of vocals and guitars over another band’s song was a new experience for us. It was interesting to combine our approach to sounds and songwriting with Rebreather’s aggressive and stripped-down composition.”

Rebreather’s new LP, ‘The Line, Its Width, and the War Drone’, will be released on December 3 via Aqualamb Records.

‘The Line, Its Width, and the War Drone’ track listing:

1.) Sicksicksick
2.) It Comes In Three’s
3.) Silent H
4.) Choke On It
5.) Residual Madness
6.) Drown
7.) Pets (Porno for Pyros cover)

This Friday, August 27, Rebreather and Frayle will share the stage at the Westside Bowl in Youngstown, Ohio for a celebration of the bands’ collaboration. Noted Brewery, Noble Creature, who brew small batch Wild Ales & Lagers in a former church in Youngstown, has brewed a special limited-edition beer — also named Drown — in honor of the release of the new song and video.

Rebreather tour dates:

August 27 Youngstown, OH Westside Bowl (w/ Frayle)
August 28 Cleveland, OH Grog Shop
September 3 Akron, OH Musica
September 4 Columbus, OH Spacebar

Rebreather is:
Barley Rantilla – Guitars and Vocals
Steven Gardner – Drums
Steve Wishnewski – Bass

https://www.facebook.com/rebreather-372407815879/
https://www.instagram.com/rebreather_band/
https://rebreather-ohio.bandcamp.com/
http://www.stevewishnewski.com/rebreather
http://www.aqualamb.org
http://www.aqualamb.bandcamp.com
http://www.facebook.com/aqualambrecords

Rebreather w/ Frayle, “Drown” official video

Rebreather, “Pets” official video