by Dan Goldin (@post_trash_)
With six years separating Faunas’ debut and their latest album, Paint The Birds, it would seem nearly everything about the project has changed. While the duo remains the same - Genevieve Ludwig (Big Hush) and Erin McCarley (Governess) - their sound has taken a major shift, pulling away from the fast yet sludgy punk of their debut and moving toward a sound more in tune with folk and the gentle acoustics that come with it. While it could be an entirely different project, Faunas operate without rules, so who is anyone to say what the band should or should not be. The great part is that the band made some pretty stellar punk music back in 2017, and they are making pretty stellar folk music in 2023.
With the Washington, DC duo’s new album Paint The Birds out today, it’s an album lush with harmonies and dreamy twang, a record that sparkles with ease and delicate compositions. Well… aside from “Waxing Moon,” the record’s sole moment of dirgy heaviness. It’s still undeniably pretty, but Ludwig and McCarley are digging into the mud with a grunge-indebted tonality. The song flexes muscle and melody at every turn, lead by low end fuzz and haunting vocal harmonies, it’s as aggressive as it is remorseful, a song that arrives at the conclusion that “it’s better if we don’t talk.” Even as they lay into head-nodding riffs, the mood of the song remains mysterious, enchanted as it shivers in the shadows.