by Devin Birse (@devvvvi.b)
It’s easy to conflate leather.head as just one among many of the ever-growing landfill of UK experimental rock acts who happen to have a sax player. They’ve even got the dour semi-spoken word vocals oft expected by such acts, but there's something unique about the London quintet. Maybe it’s the smudges of emo that stain their poetic lyrics with an uncommon sincerity. Maybe it’s the brief moments of screamo colliding with chambery post-rock, or it could be the blasts of rapid-fire skronks. leather.head’s music is a unique beast, a whirring emotive machine that expertly alternates between tenderness and brutality. The band is at their very best when the two collide.
welded has been described as a “non-canon” EP, in part an experiment in alternative tunings. This shared sonic vocabulary across the piece makes it function less as a collection of tracks and rather as one suite. The ideas presented here hit similarly on the Midwest emo by way of This Heat sound the band cultivated on their brilliant first two singles “Mara” and “Hordes” but add new qualities with them. The guitar work is mathier at times carrying an indie surf quality reminiscent of Palm or Women, such as on the opening to the melancholic “Flesh”. Elsewhere the moments of intensity feel more blistering than ever with “In Guilts Maw ii” verging on brutal prog as its scattered no-wave guitar and rampaging drums act to enrage the free jazz sax bursts of Josh Evans Jesra as vocal screams echo out like a burning choir. leather.head is a band built around contrast, the intersections between experimental free-for-alls and melodic bliss acting as a push and pull that keeps the EP an ever-engaging affair.
Tenderness is key to leather.head’s sound, often appearing as a break between the Blurt-style sax freakouts and ceiling-splitting post-rock highs to highlight the band's beating heart. Opener “Death.Healer” is a perfect example with its slowly soaring sax and wavy guitars gradually fading to expose Toby Evans Jesra’s soft swaying vocals. Similar “Flesh” feels like the most emotionally direct track in the band's catalogue yet. Its jogging pace and melancholic melodies carry the melancholy of Jesra’s voice, the sudden bursts of group vocals raising his voice and then leaving it to come crashing down.
Yet as good as Jesra’s voice is, it's his lyrics that give leather.head such an edge. They carry a confessional edge contrasted by bursts of hyper-specificity. On “In Guilts maw I” allusions to a “haggard bragger” are contrasted by a bleak emotional frankness of a line like “I like the way you say,” the instrumentation rising and falling, creating a gorgeous symmetry between the resonance of the lyrics and the music itself as a method to carry them.
Despite all these separate elements, welded is a project of intense cohesion. The songs effortlessly flow into one another with various new sonic stylings and patterns being picked up and played with till it reaches its climax with its scorching title track. Said title track is all of leather.head’s best traits embodied in one song. The instrumentation weaves moments and melodies in and out like a grotesque ballet, the sax playing that can one moment be crushing and the next cutting and those searing screams that play off Jesra’s subdued vocals to create perfect eruptions of emotional catharsis. It’s a soaring piece of music, one that shows just how terrifyingly beautiful leather.head can be.
They are a band of collision, a balancing act of experimental art-punk angularity with post-rock crescendos and screamo levels of emotional rawness. It’s a sound at once similar yet new, bringing together disparate ideas and arranging them together to create songs that function as brilliant moments of raw possibility. welded is an EP that pulses with possibility, while a brilliant suite of songs, what makes it so enticing is the raw potential it emanates. By the time the final sax blast roars across the title track, you're left not just entranced by the band’s whirring melancholy but hungry for more.