BRONZE – Absolute Compliance

colour vinyl

We here at Castle Face dig a good trance. Hypnosis, mesmerization, and brain trickery are some of our favorite results of deep listening and it is a suggestive, ritualistic and dreamlike vibe that Bronze ooze like pheromones all over their excellent new record. Absolute Compliance is a truly hypnogogic group of tunes from Bronze on their best and weirdest behavior and it hits all my favorite things about them immediately and repeatedly: Insistently strange synth voicings emanating from Miles Friction’s mad scientists lab worth of equipment controlled by a homemade-looking oversized knob; Brian Hock’s throbbing, woolly, hall of mirror grooves; and above it all Rob Spector’s thousand yard croon the vaguely familiar touchstone amongst the Lynchian, mutated surroundings…these are songs of dreams and nightmares, hidden rituals observed, futuristic coliseum entertainments displaced in time, sci fi jams of an uncertain future. Bronze are one-of-a kind great and if you’re unfamiliar you should go find their other records (including their great live record for us) and get caught up. They are real-deal weirdo kings of San Francisco and their spell is not easily dissipated once cast.