river sinclaire "four friends say nothing" Album Review
Review by: Ellie Howard, Writer @umbra_ellie
Edited by: Andrew Perrizo, Owner/Editor @melodicnoisemedia
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A yellow background featuring a drawing of three stained glass windows. The text says “river sinclaire - four friends say nothing”
I’m such a sucker for a driving bass, and river sinclaire’s newest album, four friends say nothing, delivers repeatedly. The first song, “bring me down,” opens with an absolutely monstrous bass riff reminiscent of running my old Aria Pro II through an overdriven guitar amp (incidentally, my amp died not long after). From the outset, “four friends say nothing” presents an identifiable and replicable sound, melding influences of modern psychedelic with titans of (what is now considered) classic rock. This cohesiveness is partly due to river sinclaire’s reverb-heavy production and scratchy distortion, but there is also a confidence to their songwriting exemplified by their relative minimalism.
The second song on the album, “driving,” introduces a bit of novelty: a synth bass, a xylophone melody, and a femme voice added to the mix, complementing the steady, droning masc lead. These twin vocals create an impression of choral rounds, augmenting and building off one another until they merge. river sinclaire makes excellent use of this negative space within their songs, letting each word and sound develop. This is a tight record, at only nine songs (including a less-than-two-minute interlude); however, four friends say nothing covers a lot of ground in its limited runtime, and this ‘spaciness’ bestows a confidence to their music that I would expect of a veteran band selling out stadiums.
A real standout for me, and the penultimate song on the album, “emergency,” allows the dual singers to interplay and harmonize over a simple keyboard riff, content to add a guitar fuzz or vocal embellishment here and there. The song ends with a repeated chorus: “There’s panic in the street, it’s every man for himself / it’s everyone you meet, paranoia and empty shelves,” invoking early pandemic emptiness in both instrumentation and subject matter. The congruence of content and composition is like catnip to my ears. If I have one gripe with this album, it’s that I feel “emergency” should have been the closer.
That said, the last song on the album, “bleeding,” is a return to what I would consider the overarching “sound” of the album: an assertive lead guitar riff, upbeat drum ornamentations, and a bit of an anti-chorus that turns the usual “quiet-loud-quiet” structure on its head. This last song features colorful lyrics such as “hands in my pockets and my feet can’t sit still / don’t know where I’m going but I think that I will,” and “feeling cocky ‘bout the way that I dance / know they’d let me if you gave me a chance,” ending the record on a more playful note.
If you're a fan of crunchy guitar tones, chunky bass, and echoey production–there is a lot for you to enjoy on four friends say nothing. Personally, I appreciate how nimble this album can be, while retaining a very specific aural quality. Having such a homogeneous production lets the album explore a bit and accentuates its quirks. For example, “emu planet”– a wavy interplay between the two singers–feels sonically huge; the band builds an absolute wall of synth and guitar noise, and the snare sound (we’re getting into the weeds here a bit, but trust) has an airy reverb that complements the otherwise clicky percussion sounds. On another axis of the musical spectrum, track three, “goodbye sunset,” has a 50’s doo wop quality to it, especially with its descant ‘oohs’ and ‘aahs,’ and its saccharine outro of “I miss you, I miss you, I miss youuuuu.” These tracks act not only as palette cleansers, but contain some of my favorite moments on the album.
river sinclaire is a three piece alternative band from Minneapolis, Minnesota. I listened to their album on their bandcamp, though they also have all of the usual social medias, as well as a very convenient Linktree with all of their online presences. They most recently played at Zhora Darling in Minneapolis.
