Record Review: Nest – Hadal

Nashville four-piece Nest first came to fruition towards the back end of 2011 and have made a steady rise towards garnering a moderate support in the last two and a bit years. Operating within the warm tether of Cincinnati based label Broken Circles and on the back on a growing fanbase, Nest have decided to release unto the public the 5 song EP Hadal.
Opening track “Father Adder” begins with a rough deep south style jamboree, before whooshing into a gentle guitar melody accompanied by an even gentler vocal. The two and a half minutes before the chorus arrives is spent whittling away, creating the perfect niche and as a result the chorus arrives at the perfect time. The whole track clocks in at just over five minutes, but such is the gentle nature and smooth gradient that the five minutes simply glide by. I felt compelled to listen to the track a few more times over until I was truly satisfied; Not because the track is lacking in any way but because of the way it grabs you unconsciously. It comes and goes, it silently marks you like a hunter would mark it’s prey and once your ears are pricked it leaves.

“A Moving Swamp” comes next, bringing much of the same as the previous track. It’s a very sombre affair up until the second half when the vocals shift almost effortlessly into a more aggressive nature. A lot must be said about Pete Wanca’s drumming, which does a hell of a lot at keeping the music as coherent as possible. When the song begins to weave and threaten to break out, the drums pick it up and give it some much needed rhythm.

Nest BandNext comes “Stairs-Stares”, which features some incredible shifts in dynamics. The pace changes at a very frequent rate, giving it an almost math rock feel. Towards the end the drums die off and the track comes to a crawl, before the they kick back up and lead into an instrumental conclusion. Such is the impressive versatility to have so much depth in their music.

A dip in proceedings arrives with track four “Lamia (Lakeside)”, which incidentally is an entirely instrumental interlude. Now, I’ve always been a little sceptical of these appearing on albums and especially EP’s. While it’s all very nice, it’s not all that different from the previous tracks. It’s also very hard to justify placing an instrumental on a five track EP, effectively eliminating a fifth of your finished product. Whether it was a riff or melody that the band became rather fond of, but couldn’t find a way to turn it into a complete song remains to be seen.

Closing track “Hands In A Hole” starts off slow, then gradually begins to build into a grand gang vocal accompanied by stomping drums. It’s another solid track on what is indeed a solid EP.Overall it’s a largely impressive effort from the Nashville band and one would predict them to continue their rise to bigger things and to be noticed outside of their hometown. It’s worth noting how fluidly each song switches musical styles. On one hand you have yourself a solid slice of indie rock, then without warning the song becomes post-hardcore. Clearly a sign of a band confident in it’s own songwriting abilities, to create such a multi-headed musical beast as this EP is.

Rating: 3.5

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