DRAINING LOVE STORY is the seventh album by Australian electronic musician Sewerslvt, released in January this year. But is it good?
This album has been making some buzz online since it's release and has had some impressive staying power, probably partly due to the loud, colourful and eye catching cover. But listening to the album, it's not hard to see why people have fallen in love with it. And by the way, this is a drum and bass album, and despite this, it still manages to be deeply artful and poignant.
The first track is a short intro of noisey samples and synths that kind of float around until they rise into this maelstrom of sound, before the track title is sampled, and the track ends not long after. It sets the mood effectively for what is about to happen.
NEWLOVE starts the album proper, with these synths before the driving beat comes in, accented by these sounds that could be synthesised or warped vocals. Listening to the background sounds is just as rewarding as grooving to the rhythm, with these layered synths and bits of samples hanging around, and of course, you'll only get the full experience with a good speaker system. The track transitions in the second half to this euphorically fast combination of overwhelming synths and fast bpm drumming, before giving way to this ethereal ambient section till the track ends.
YANDERE COMPLEX picks up where the peak energy f the previous track left off, with these vaporwave esque sampled vocals against a furious breakbeat that takes no time rising from beneath what sounds like a sonic ocean to beat you over the head. The track's second half has so much going on, so many drum beats, samples and synth notes that it feels like you're in a whirlwind, before being dropped back into this ethereal yet rhythmic ambient space.
ECIFIRCAS (sacrifice backwards) has maybe my favourite use of sampling on the album. It sounds like it's from an anime, where this male narrator how he has sacrificed his happiness for his family, with the beat dropping at the crux of his rant. Given the album cover's glitchy aesthetic, I think this is Sewerslvt's way of repurposing found objects from the internet to describe their own experiences and interactions, even if only adjacently, and then the following high bpm dance sections representing the chaos or repurcussions or emotional distress. After the second drop in this song, there's a really really pretty synth that floats around, almost as if it's totally unaware of the drum section, which creates a great contrast of tones.
LEXAPRO DELIRIUM starts off with a kind of underwhelming and generic melody and rhythm, it kind of sounds like something you could hear at any club, but after getting about a minute in it starts to develop with an ominous synth in the background and some more percussion. It then takes a break to add some really rhythmic vocals and these dreamy xylophone parts in the upper register. By the time the track fully develops it feels absolutely alive, the textures are absolutely gorgeous, and this is only half way in. The track's groove and melody are just so solid, it knows when to add and take away parts and what to keep consistently throughout, and keeps this feeling of longing consistent aswell, despite the upbeat rhythm, which is largely driven by this despondent bass section.
THIS FLEETING FEELING is one of the shorter tracks, suitably, and takes a break from the breakbeats to deliver this lo fi sampling and again, gorgeous synthesiser work. And again, it's euphoric. These returning feelings and emotional motifs really show how much of a single vision this album is. The track is ended with this audio of a girl crying and weeping, and it's harrowing, before it's crushed by the start of SWINGING IN HIS CELL which immediately makes itself known with this huge airhorn sound, which after a minute of ambiance and sampling, catches you off guard with this rapid breakbeat and warm synths. It introduces these overbearing vocal samples, before they give way to what sounds like an even more charged version of the earlier part of the track. It flip flops between these energetic drum sections and ambient passages, much like alot of the album.
MR KILL MYSELF is probably my favourite track on the album. It starts with these sweeping synthesisers, and introduces this drum section that gets progressively more charged as the track progresses. Vocal motifs provide some extra rhythm, and stay as a nice constant as the drums get louder and angrier. The track then backsteps to let a new vocal stem take root, the rest of the track builds in tension before exploding into what feels like a battle between laser shooting spaceships, it's utterly exhilarating. The track resets itself again to rebuild tension for more euphoric and noisey climaxes, the entire thing is just a masterclass in build and release, build and release.
I remember I wasn't too hot on the next track on first listen, maybe just because it didn't match the insane highs of the last track, maybe because it just didn't leave enough time to decompress and settle back down. If it was earlier in the tracklist I may have liked it more, but here it feels a little underwhelming. On it's own though, it's a good track with more solid rhythms and sampling. It has this really cool glitzy synth section at the halfway mark, and the fade out section is one of the best on the album.
Final track SLOWDEATH starts with this cathartic ambient section with these beautiful interlocking waves of synth that really feel like a release, before the almost grungy drum tracks comes in to accompany it. The track builds and builds and again, it feels really cathartic despite the ominous title. The outro feels like there's this spectre lingering around after everything has passed you by, it's just really well crafted and made.
Overall, I really liked this album. I got way more than I expected from a drum and bass album and that's because this album is so much more than that. It portrays emotion and experience in such an intelligent way, and despite not having the most original sound palette it manages to carve out a space wholly it's own. Probably my favourite album to come out this year so far.
Comments