A recent single release from Mumrunner crosses elements of classic post-punk into a wild and vast shoegaze style and throughout it all you get this cross between color and edginess along with a boisterous character that you end up really getting sucked into.
"Soot" has an amazing way of seamlessly blending these genres. The post-punk of it all comes down to the verses. During the verses, the guitar tones have that classic twang and chorus-like effect as they play a memorable melody that lends a big hand to why the song gets stuck in your head.
Growing up and listening to lots of this kind of stuff lets me know that the genre is a heavy influence for this band. However, during those chorus areas, the song explodes into a massive and sonically driven feel with much heavier guitar tones but still melodically pushes so you get that shoegaze expansiveness.
The way they put those together is just outstanding, and the track feels like something you'd hear on a late 90s underground radio station. Again, growing up with this kind of stuff, I can tell you that the aesthetic is completely nailed.
There are sections of this song where you have layers of guitar tracks overlapping each other, giving off such a beautiful atmosphere that invites you to sort of drift alongside it.
I love how the vocals come into play here because they're slightly buried in the mix, which is a classic shoe game style. They're not drenched in reverb, but a lot of the guitar work is, so that takes care of the depth aspect.
The vocals are almost like instruments themselves. They add a new texture and additional layers to the track that help build the atmosphere I just mentioned.
If you listen carefully, it feels like there's a low and high octave a lot of the time vocally. I find this quite attractive.
I have to love a song that feels like it wraps itself around you and keeps you right where it wants to. This track accomplishes that by giving you that glorious combination of vastness, melody, color, and heavy edginess all at the same time.
The drumming is alive and breathing. It adds tons of drive to this track and gives it that sort of vivacious energy when it explodes into the heavy parts while still keeping some of that energy during the verses.
I think the drumming is so imperative during those verses because it pushes everything forward so well, while the guitars are all flowy and drifting.
This is the song that you can easily get engulfed in and, of course, eventually, washed away with.
It's a bit of an escape, but I adore that.
I also really enjoyed the fact that it feels like this was recorded live on the floor to an extent. Maybe with overdubs later on, but still, the energy feels like everyone there was feeding off of each other the entire time, and that also adds to the whole 'alive and breathing' factor.
There are a lot of amazing layers and textures to this track that come together to create something beautiful but still boast an earth-rumbling heaviness that applies amazing guitar tone and distortion with robust melody and this gorgeous hello, which again, is the shoegaze part of how the song is built.
This is certainly for fans of classic post- or shoegaze because, again, it encompasses the best parts of both genres while throwing in bits of extra stuff here and there, and there's never a dull moment.
It's progressive and enticing, alluring and satiating, to be honest.
Take a deep dive into this track as soon as you can and when you do, do it with headphones on so you can soak in all of those layers and textures best.
Remember where you heard this first.
SPOTIFY
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