Richmond indie rockers Downhaul specialize in giddy, twangy headrush melodies, and if you fuck with Pinegrove, I can’t see any reason why you wouldn’t fuck with them. Downhaul released their surprise EP Squall last year, and they followed it up with the one-off single “Welcome.” Today, they’ve got a new song called “Sinker,” and it’s a good one.
“Sinker” moves with a brisk twinkle, and bandleader Gordon Phillips hits some great harmonies with his bandmates without letting the bittersweet quality dip out of his voice. (Full disclosure: Phillips is someone I hang out with at shows sometimes. Good guy!) In a press release, Phillips says that he “tried to hold the songs to ‘The Campfire Test,’ which is basically the idea that a song works if it’s good when you play it alone on acoustic guitar, without the rest of the band or anything ornate you might do in the studio.” He continues:
My first (non-ska) band was kind of a suburban high schooler’s take on folk punk, and basically all our songs used this same strum pattern/backbeat. I’ve heard it called a “train beat” before and, for some reason, it just seems to lend itself to nice vocal melodies. I love the bounce of Chandler [Brooks’] bass part through the verses, which adds a cool floating feel to the song’s momentum. The studio version of this song is pretty concise and streamlined, but we stretch it out a bit live and give everybody the chance to play.
Listen to “Sinker” below.
“Sinker” is out now on Self Aware Records.
