I first saw/heard/shot Alluvion back in late December 2016 at a fundraiser in Orange, VA. They had their own lights and fog machines going.and then they started playing. Between the strobes, the blue light and that quirky, nuanced sound, it was nothing short of a spectacle.
And truthfully, it's one thing to write great songs but it's quite another to add a level of detail that brazenly says "I'm pouring parts of my soul into this".
...Of the One Consciousness tears it up with "Oblivious" and "Tyrants", both songs thick stews of jangled nerves, tight riffs and bug-in-the-ear, 8-bit urgency exhibiting the band's range as they shuffle gracefully between ferocity and frailty.
"Hold tight you're the one in the dark but you won't see me, won't hear me," John croons on "Oblivious". Stephen shrugs and says that people used to give them grief for being too out of the box for the local scene, whether it was John's singing (the man has both pipes and coherence in spades) or having too many props.
Fortunately, evolution eventually finds a way to win and through seven albums since the late '90s, the very things that made Alluvion stick out like a sore thumb are the very same things that continue to fuel their creative fire.
Making music in a group setting (i.e. rock band) is not quite unlike (pardon the pun)-building walls of sound.
Between John's raw/reassuring vocals, Stephen's soaring/spinning guitars and Brian Carnes' rocksteady bass feeding off each other and drummer Andy Murray who just literally flows-Alluvion has eased away from their emo roots to an albeit industrial-grade sound that borrows liberally from the exacting precision of prog, the experimental flair of psychedelia and the unapologetically danceable nature of shoegaze.
However, as playful as this record gets, the guys never hold back on talking about heavier things with the hard-charging bull vs. matador approach most apparent in the flamenco-laced "Incubate and Wait".
"Crawl inside me, crawl today/Eat your share, eat away/My flesh be the temple for better days/Incubate and wait," John sings in a raspy tone on what could be an indictment on modern life, a meditation on past regressions or the burden of creation.
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2015 was a particularly difficult year for the band as they dealt with a few things in their personal lives. Out of this tumultuous time came insight and a better understanding what truly mattered.
"We wanted to talk about the monsters we all have to fight inside our heads," Andy told me at one of the last few gigs I saw them play.
"Fight Real Fires" kicks off like a rude awakening of futuristic alarm bells and segues into careful introspection, the primal drum beat dodging around the grit and buzz of the electric strings.
Beyond the neo-futuristic approach, there is a warmth and humanity to this collection that sharply contrasts with the steely cold Alluvion blue, most evident as OTOC winds down with "Transcendental" and "Larva", intriguing melodic reveries and think pieces.
Brian who recorded, mixed and mastered OTOC once asked me what I thought about the album and having seen the band live a few times all over Virginia earlier this year, all I'd really have to say is that this is, *undoubtedly*, Alluvion alright.
-Jay Tamangan of Rogue Crayon