Gimic: New Traditions 12"

Gimic: New Traditions 12” (Drunken Sailor Records) I was a big fan of this Bristol, UK punk band’s first two 7” EPs, but as much as I liked those records, I had a feeling Gimic would really blossom on a full-length. New Traditions proves my intuition correct. Gimic’s sound is both wide and dense, and the LP’s longer runtime gives the band an opportunity to spread out and allows the listener to soak more deeply into Gimic’s world. And it’s a very unique world! Gimic’s music encompasses all these adjectives that typically don’t go together: raging, earnest, frantic, intricate, melodic, frightening, sublime, delicate… I could keep going, but you probably get the point. The interplay between guitar and bass is a defining aspect of their sound, the two sets of strings winding around one another into these beautifully tangled knots, occasionally locking together to pummel you like a true old-school hardcore band for a couple of bars before careening off in their own directions again. The drummer somehow finds their way through this maze, striking a great balance between giving the songs a strong rhythmic backbone while also letting the string players’ unique dynamic shine. And then there are the vocals, which take enigmatic, impressionistic lyrics and force them through a hardcore sieve, coming out the other end as an unholy scream that you feel in the depths of your gut. If you want to jump in at the deep end of Gimic’s pool, give the track “Disintegrate” a listen. The guitar riff is something else, and particularly when you lay it on top of a nearly-as-complex bass line, the effect is enough to make you dizzy. But then they get to the chorus, Harry finds one of the album’s most memorable vocal melodies, and for a moment Gimic summons the bulldozer anthems of Leatherface’s almighty Mush. While the density and complexity is thrilling, so far my favorite moments on New Traditions are when Gimic backs off the gas just a little on tracks like “Dark, Darker” and “New Traditions,” the latter of which evokes Slint’s sinuosity… but maybe I just like those songs because they give my smooth brain a little more time to process everything Gimic throws at it. God knows Gimic’s music is challenging, and a lot of listeners won’t be up for it, but if you want something that will knock you on your ass with both its technical density and its emotional intensity, New Traditions fits the bill like few other records.