The rather prolific Big|Brave have been ploughing their own furrow for the best part of ten years.
After 2021’s extraordinary collaboration with The Body, they have stripped themselves back down to a trio, still dealing with emotional tales of human frailty, but firmly encased in a pummelling sheath of feedback and distortion that at times brings to mind an AT-AT crashing through pristine forest.
It keeps on mercilessly pushing forward, slow but incessant, a subversive trail crushed in its wake; while in other stretches, the sound is pared right down intensely, highlighting Big|Brave’s secret weapon: Robin Wattie‘s elemental, heart-stirring voice.This musical cacophony, constructed from guitars and drums, quickens the heart; which is then busted wide open by that voice, a visceral throb, at times feeling like someone standing on the edge of a cliff, screaming into the void to release the tension, urged on by the guitars that do their best to echo this anguish. The drumming meanwhile manages to cover the bass element; slow, heavy, rhythmic and hypnotic.
They are always happy to mix things up, though, and draw the listener closer with some sparser, drier atmospheres, the air thick with dust and the pang of solitude. Here, the extra space further intensifies the frailty of the voice as it wavers, suspended amid the fallout. There is structureless flickering with the voice as old and arid as forgotten wheat, shimmering in a heat haze, the vibrato hinting at something while the guitars howl like guiding beasts desperation ever present. The album moves through claustrophobic density to expansive vistas, sometimes in the same track; but whatever, the controlled feedback is delicious and enveloping, pregnant with all possibilities, the guitars teetering and tearing at one another. When the feedback is removed and the guitars ring out clear, it is quite a transformation, a lonely, folky trail mysteriously picking its way through barren lands.There are reminders of the likes of Swans or Godflesh, but this is somehow more elemental, more in touch with the nature of the earth, a more personal journey, ancient stories and forgotten rites re-emerging with the ebb and flow of the music. They inhabit a different place: less disciplined, more emotive and because of that somehow more affecting for the listener. The dissolution of feedback often works as punctuation, further expressing a point, drawing attention to the tale being told, romantic desolation simmering intently.
Nature Morte is a sublime collection of tracks that pierces the heart and the ear at every opportunity and sees Big|Brave leaving all others straggling in their wake. A treat for those moments when your heart needs a little pummelling.-Mr Olivetti-
