The album doesn’t come at you. It waits. Doesn’t feel like it wants your attention, more like it’s giving you a look to see if you’ll stick around. Not distant, not cold – just uninterested in putting on a show. There’s a confidence in that. Or maybe indifference. Could be the same thing.
This is doom, yeah – but it doesn’t carry itself like metal. There’s no performance of heaviness. The distortion is thick, but it doesn’t crush. It hangs there like fog. The riffs loop, slow and deliberate, not to punish but to hypnotize. Stoner in tempo maybe, but not in spirit – no boogie, no swagger, no groove trying to win you over. And the psych is not color, it’s not effect. It’s the way the whole record sort of blurs at the edges, like it’s playing just slightly outside of regular time.
Six tracks. None of them trying to outdo the last. No payoff moments, no big builds. Just a steady presence, like it’s already halfway through a story and you’re sitting there trying to piece together what the hell happened before you pressed play.
Guitars don’t rush. Nothing rushes. The tone isn’t monstrous or slick or blown-out – it’s just there, steady and dry, kind of like someone lit a candle and let the wax pool slowly over a cassette deck. Vocals are even less immediate. Not buried, just unbothered. You don’t lean into them to understand the words; you let them sit in your periphery, where they belong.
There’s a strange calm underneath all the distortion. Not the kind that puts you to sleep. The kind that makes you feel like something’s coming, but it never does – and that becomes the point.
This record isn’t about riffs. It’s about presence. Not “vibe” in the way that word gets thrown around now – it’s closer to mood in the old sense. A weather system. Low pressure. Slow movement. No urgency.
You get the sense that Steele didn’t write this for fans. Or listeners, really. Just himself. It doesn’t pander. Doesn’t even explain itself. That’s what makes it feel real. Not raw, not refined – just unconcerned. That’s rare.
I’m not even sure if I like it. But I trust it.
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Released by Electric Valley Records on May 16, 2025
