Description
Label Review.
2019 album. Psych rock. Also available on Vinyl.
Our Overview.
Nova Scotia based garage psyche rock quartet are releasing their new album ‘Cool To Who’ via Outside Music. Walrus are here to play for the sake of the song. The Halifax based band’s signature sound is a fuzzed-out electric blanket of soul with a few unrepentant strands of authentic heaviosity.
Extensive studio experimentation can be heard throughout their sonically unique music, from varispeed warble to Spacemen-3 style saucer drone-attacks. Live, their low-key manner belies a depth and dedication to the craft. This band could be thrown on a bill betwixt Love and Sabbath and not embarrass the present.
Formed in 2012 by two brothers, Justin (vocalist and guitarist) and Jordan (drummer) Murphy, alongside two friends in Truro, Nova Scotia, the band cut their teeth in music via the traditional route of heavy touring. Intense bouts of gigging saw the quartet earn a reputation, not only for their frantic live shows but also for the way the treat the process - on one occasion managing to get banned from Avis Rental Car. Rental companies offer unlimited mileage on a vehicle for families renting a minivan to go to their cabin, Disney World or a family reunion. They don’t anticipate customers to rack up 18,000km in less than three weeks touring as band around the entire stretch of the continent.
‘Long, languid stretches of spacey meanderings eventually wind themselves up into tight knots that beg to be undone, to be free again’ Walrus bring about a magnificent explosion of noise and heat.’ - Consequence Of Sound
’Thumping, synthing wonder’ mixes the best influences of the genre with the band’s own studio experimentation’ - (4/5) Stereogum
‘The band somehow mix gentle, Brian Wilson vocal melodies and orchestrations with out-of-the- blue punk thrash parts that keep listeners guessing. The high, winsome vocals and chiming 12- string Rickenbacker certainly conjured late ‘60s cloudy folk-pop, but the rest of the band infused the songs with sharp edges. Some of it recalled the Sadies, and the musicians in Walrus are certainly in the same league.’ - Exclaim!
‘Best bet for an acid flashback’ - Now‘Pristine, fuzzed-up jams’ - CLRVYNT