Gauntlet Hair My Christ

The indieverse is slopping wet with reverb right now. And so are the songs of Gauntlet Hair. But the band uses the effect in a wholly different way than their peers. Instead of using reverb as a gauze, Gauntlet Hair uses its curvature and decay to form and push the melodies, to further shape the songs. Andy R.'s guitar strikes on "My Christ" leave these twinkling chemtrails behind then, each getting thwacked through with Craig Nice's huge-ass snare cracks. It's unrelenting in the way that Jane's Addiction or INXS could be. B-Side "Need to Retire" is a blink-and-you'll-miss it pop torpedo with a grinning, super-market singsongy "oooh oooh oooh" chorus. Meanwhile, the second B-Side track "Minimal Armageddon" is almost like a peek behind Gauntlet Hair's creative curtain. It paints an unsettling, barren landscape, with a lone menacing guitar egging on the white, metallic explosions on the horizon.