by Giliann Karon (@lethalrejection)
After years in the making, Her New Knife is finally getting their flowers. The Philadelphia shoegaze band kept busy on an ambitious nationwide tour with julie, They Are Gutting a Body of Water, and Frost Children. They released their dazzling new EP, chrome is lullaby, on the tastemaking label Julia’s War. Shoegaze is having a moment – anyone with the technology can create something from their bedrooms. Widespread access is a net positive but also flattens the final product. If anyone can construct a track, it takes more to stand out. Luckily, Her New Knife doesn’t have that issue.
“Shoegaze” is a convenient moniker that also alludes to groups they rub elbows with. It’s a little hard to pin down what kind of music Her New Knife makes, but these nuances allow their heavy drones and gloomy textures to peek through. Discordant crashes of piano keys on the brooding opener, “kittyriff,” bring structure, as opposed to their earlier freewheeling work.
The breathy and melodic “skinny/baby” shapeshifts into an eerie drone track as soon as you begin comfortably tapping your fingers to the beat. Pummeling bass and thrashing drums situate the band in the eye of a proverbial hurricane, wasting no time to jump into the thick of things. Outros, bridges, and other conventions are few and far between. Every chance they get, Her New Knife chooses to go darker, bolder, and weirder.