Terrors – “Withdrawing” MP3/download
Terrors – “Inequipoise/Smoke Anyway” MP3/download [taken from a show at Denver's Hi-Dive]
The jacket for Lagan Qord, the latest from Terrors, features a back-cover photo of two people hunched down in a strange plastic bubble of sorts (alright alright, it’s a tent), a worthy metaphor from the isolation that comes from so a zillion different tape-trading scenes and only a few people to support them all. (And here I am contributing to the confusion, unable to focus on any one band/label for longer than a few weeks (with a few notable exceptions) and perhaps too dead-set on finding foreign — as in new, not necessarily from-afar, though that doesn’t hurt — sounds as opposed to locating groups more than a few people will be interested in. WHATEVER BRO, I CAN’T TAKE ALL OF THIS ON RIGHT NOW. JUST LET ME BE ME!!)
Elijah Forrest belies his chosen moniker, as there’s nothing terrifying about Lagan Qord (unless you listen to commercial music, in which case you’ll be fit to be tied). There is, however, something disturbing about the dark, foggy enclaves Forrest chooses for himself. Mixing dashes of old, pure Kurt Vile (his dirt-dog solo acoustic stuff is all that matters), Mason Lindhal (an absolute acoustic-dash-light-noise warrior), the first (and best) Blackout Beach record (side project of Carey Mercer, of Frog Eyes), Six Organs Of Admittance and … shit, I’m blanking … Comoros maybe (for the guitar-echo jams)? Mt. Eerie? Jack Rose? Tough to pin down, this eerily quiet din is …
Most impressive here is the ability to add a vocal element to an artform — guitar picking both fast and slow — that works awful well on its own, the final product a red-eyed, rainbow-watching, river-rolling, heavily accented, acoustic sad-guy shuffle through slough (look it up) I never imagined I’d want to set ear on. Now that I have the chance I’m drinking it in for all it’s worth; no fuckin’ joking there. I can’t remember taking such a scenic ride through echo-drenched memories in the last few months. It’s as if by pulling so far back from familiar form and nuance Terrors has found a way to connect with the brain on a whole new level. He does this while also testing your patience just a titter. He doesn’t make things easy — why put out picket fences and melting popsicles when you can set up so many beautiful nails and broken glass for the ear to snag itself on?
His voice seems to drift away for long stretches, only to appear calmly and confidently, as if to say, “I was here all along, but I didn’t feel the need to sing until just now.” Then there’s “God Bless the Child (Take 3),” wherein Forrest sings like a good-ol’ Southern boy with a goatee and a can of chew in his pocket (this is all sight-unseen mind you). There’s still that lonely, lazy slow-burn in the background, hazing up the room like a hot shower, causing all the mirrors to fog and the air to moisten the lungs. This is Forrest’s secret strategy: He likes to sing and play guitar; however, he’s also a super-minimalist noise composer in a way, inasmuch as he frosts much of what he does with at-times almost un-discernible accents and rustlings.
Not to mention he hides his voice behind a veil of echo and other pedal settings to be named later. He’s not going to come out of the shadows until/unless you’re ready to sit down and get to know him the right way (preferably over the course of multiple spins).
