Name Sayers’ debut LP spins a torch-lit ritual of loud, Gothic post-folk led by a singer whose hovering baritone and metaphysical command position him as the musical next of kin to Nick Cave and PJ Harvey (had the onetime lovers ever procreated). Eight scriptures from the ATX fourpiece unfold with the tribal, floor-tom pounding of “Upbringing,” over which Devin James Fry chants a creation story where his body and voice are a macrocosm of the Colorado landscape: “Yarrow grow where my heel go/ Red canyon down my back.” Earthy ideology runs deep in the fascinating lyricism of Fry, who romanticizes celestial cycles on “New Moon” while ghosts echo out the sound hole of his down-tuned, distorted, acoustic guitar atop Marc Henry’s danceable beat. Bassist Grant Himmler and guitarist Garrett Hellman are shamans too, hitting a mystical “I Put a Spell on You” crawl on the Arthurian-legend-inspired “Heron King” before enchanting an industrial rock motor with “Kerr Gulch,” thickened with cosmic steel guitar from Ricky Ray Jackson.
This article appears in December 14 • 2018.