Bannered Mare Deliver A Massive Single
A mind-boggling new single from Bannered Mare brings out a set of blistering riffs that come at you from all angles with surprises around its corners, inventive songwriting, intricate but loose and fun guitar work, along with unique time signatures, and some changes you really didn't expect along the way.
"Pocket Picker" comes through with a very lively and vivacious sort of intensity and I really enjoyed that because the whole thing took me by storm from beginning to end. At the start of the track you have some wild guitar work that leads into an intricate riff and opens up the verse and vocalist into that great and sort of outside the box time signature but the changes keep coming with this track and it's something that I really enjoyed about it.
This is a track that you could fit into an alternative rock category, but it's so much more than that. It's got math and indie-rock elements, classic 90s underground heavy rock approaches, and plenty of progressive rock as well. It's just done in a way that separates itself from the rest.
I love the main roof of the track because it's got a really cool feel to it, a great little melody, and then goes into some heavier palm-muted crunching.
While this is happening, you get very passionately delivered vocals. He's really belting out and almost giving a sense of urgency.
I can't put my finger on exactly how, but you do get that sense while you listen to the track. It's like everything feels slightly frantic and almost manic at times, but then breaks into sections that balance it out. It is somewhat aggressive.
This is one of those songs you listen to more than once, so you could really soak it all in. A lot is going on in terms of the time changes, composition, and arrangement.
Halfway into the track, it breaks open into this massive sort of breakdown with really heavy rhythms and guitar work that sounds like it's going through an octave pedal, so you hear the high and the low versions of the notes that are being played simultaneously, along with the bass guitar underneath it, giving it the rumbling underbelly it needed to really push the envelope.
During this section, you get some of that heavy 90s underground alternative rock soundscape. There are some crew vocals, or what some would call crowd vocals, that are similar to punk rock in a sense, but those are almost drowning in reverb, so it adds a different effect.
The energy is still there, but it just feels distanced, which is really cool.
After that happens, the song opens up into a freeing soundscape. One that's vast and almost cinematic.
This section really drew me into the song further because I wasn't expecting it. I simply wasn't expecting anything like this to happen, so when it did, I got sucked into this completely different atmosphere.
Vocals are amazing here. There are layers of harmonizing vocals that feel like they're used just as instruments themselves. They add such a beautiful texture to the already spacious and ambient tonality of what's happening.
The song becomes anthemic with more great time signatures, inventive guitar work, and you start to get a bit of a post-rock or even post-hardcore feel.
Along with some outstanding guitar and vocal work, the drummer is just ridiculous throughout this whole thing. The time signatures, intricate stop-and-go sections, all of it was really memorized perfectly, and the drums are actually performed with a heavy hand, so you can feel the energy pushing everyone.
I think that's one of the biggest attributes of this release that hit me so hard. Aside from all the changes and progressions being so unique and outside the box, fun, and experimental, it was all still heavy-hitting, and the energy was epic.
This was an opus of a single. I love how intelligent this single was. The arrangement is outstanding and almost outlandish, even. It came together like puzzle pieces, and I was blown away by the whole thing. At the end, I had to listen to it all over again right away.
You kind of sit back and think to yourself ... 'What just happened?"
I mean that in a good way.
This was absolutely awesome and I would hurt anyone who loves post, alternative, math, progressive, or heavy rock to check this out right now.
If you're a big fan of inventive riffs and time signatures, this is going to be 100% for you. You will be blown away.
This was a pretty epic track and I suggest you go crank it right now.
