SPILL ALBUM REVIEW: BRAINWASHER – 39 LIGHTYEARS FROM HEAVEN

BRAINWASHER
39 LIGHTYEARS FROM HEAVEN
MOTHLAND

39 Lightyears From Heaven, the debut LP from the Oklahoma City two-piece Brainwasher, is certainly not your grandma’s/grandpa’s rock ‘n’ roll record. It’s experimental by default, ambitious, and akin to an odyssey of unique sounds that glimmer throughout the eardrums. Seeing as the two members of Brainwasher, Matthew Duckworth Kirksey (vocals, drums, keyboards, sampler) and Tommy McKenzie (guitar, bass, keyboards, sampler), have had deeply rooted ties in experimental music communities for decades, it’s probably no surprise that this LP is cutthroat and contemporary. Fully utilizing all the sonic avenues one can wander down in the current year, Brainwasher takes audiences on a 40-min journey through various auditory landscapes. For better or for worse, each song is more ambitious and genre-defying than the one before.

The electronic instrumentals vibrate throughout, whether it be the grooves of “A1A,” with its air-tight snares and explosive chorus, or “At Least It Beats an Actor,” which sees a driving bass riff spawn a hi-hat heavy club hit. There’s nothing technically extraordinary about these songs. However, the execution of sounds on display, combined with the heavily distorted and reverberated vocal lines (which work in an idiosyncratic manner with the leading instrumental riffs), makes for a wholly original and engaging sonic environment with sandbox potential; anything goes for the two-piece. The tracklist keeps this tone for the majority of the LP’s runtime. This is, until the closing track, “Try,” begins rippling through your eardrums. It’s an instantly entrancing song, one that hooks you with its ambient intro and reverberated guitar arpeggios, before vocal lines calmly approach to tell a story of loss, death, and attempting to progress into the future with the knowledge of what you’ve learned (as well as living for those who have passed far before their time). “It’s been 13 years since my brother tried/He didn’t feel the love in time/But I bet he would know it was true.” All of this occurs before the last half of the track screeches into abrasive and brainwashing soundscapes, culminating in a full-blown instrumental breakdown. The gain is cranked to 10, the performances are passionate, and then the track proceeds to fade out quietly on a lone guitar riff.

It’s this eclectic blend of high-energy, pulsing electric tracks, as well as low-key ballads, that keeps the project exciting from cover to cover. The sounds are so expansive and rich that the vocal lines almost begin to bleed into the instrumentals on multiple tracks, creating one cohesive and extreme mental image in the listener’s head (think something along the lines of Windows Music Player visualizers). Personally, when I consider the 40-min art show of monumental noise walls and infectious, controlling grooves that this LP contains, I can’t help but look towards the future of Brainwasher’s discography with inherently hopeful eyes.

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