by Dan Goldin (@post_trash_)
Gold Arc is the experimental pop-meets-art rock debut from Baltimore’s Tomato Flower, a great new band that you ought to know. Set for release on February 11th via Ramp Local (Godcaster, Buck Gooter, Stice), the band sound fully formed from the get-go, an impressive accomplishment when fusing together the accessible with an avant-garde pop mentality. Their sound is psychedelic and dreamy with a penchant for explosive entanglements and earnest melodies, sounding like a pulpy blend of contemporaries Crumb, Palm, and maybe even the occasional hint of Empath or Lomelda. Tomato Flower are painting with a wide array of colors and textures, never transfixed on the same ideas for too long as they introduce all that lies ahead.
Having shared lead single “Red Machine” toward the end of last year, the band return with, “World To Come," a jazzy jaunt of exploratory psych. The song slinks between enormous harmonies and dynamic rhythms, naturally expanding and contracted without much warning. There’s nothing jarring about the composition as the band lull us into their vision, assuredly unsure about the world to come. Tomato Flower sense those drift toward the apocalyptic and choose a sense of hope in spite of it. This one is warm and comforting while full of dexterous playing and fluid songwriting, which is to say it’s pretty much everything we need.