October 24, 2017 — “Faulty” by Beliefs

Beliefs

If you only listen to one song today, make it “Faulty” by Beliefs (2017, from the album Habitat).
Beliefs is a post-punk/shoegaze/noise rock duo from Toronto. They formed in 2010, then released a self-titled album in 2013. In 2015, their sophomore album Leaper drew a lot of comparisons to a range of sounds including MBV, Electr-O-Pura-era Yo La Tango, and Mezcal Head-era Swervedriver. Last month, the band released their third long-player —Habitat— via Hand Drawn Dracula.
Josh Korody did most of the heavy lifting on the previous two albums, and the new album was the first time that he and Jesse Crowe wrote material together. He said that they wrote 80 % of it from scratch in a room together over a span of four days. He went on to say that they finished it over a span of 16 more days. No matter what they did, the end result is a little less shoegazey and a little more synth-y and psych-y. Call it whatever you want to. I like it a lot.
There’s a song from the new album called “1994” that Korody says is “sort of a sequel” to their song “1992”, from Leaper. I don’t really hear it. I think “1992” sounds like Dirty-era Sonic Youth while “1994” sounds like a Wye Oak song on LSD. But this isn’t about “1994”, or Sonic Youth, or Swervedriver, or any of those other things. This is about a noisy as hell, post-punk(ish) song called “Faulty”.
This is that song:
“Faulty” by Beliefs

Right from the drop, with that heavy bass, it reminds me of things like the Brooklyn post-punk band Weekend. Later, when the guitars start to work their way in at about 1:15, I’m reminded more of A Place to Bury Strangers. I’m reminded even more of them in the final minute of the song. There’s a humongous wave of heavily delayed guitar, and some rapid drumming with what sounds like some synthetic beats mixed in. It’s all very gloriously noisy. I’ve had this record for a few weeks, but I finally got my first chance to listen to it today as I was driving around doing errands. It sounds fantastic on cruddy car stereo speakers. It also sounds fantastic on good headphones.

This is meant to be played very loudly. I’m sure it’s better in the dark.

You can order Habitat via Bandcamp here, and you should check out some of the other excellent HDD releases here.