Meet Bound, a fairly newfound, upcoming quartet out of Washington, DC, who have just released their debut full length, No Beyond, on their imprint Diehard Skeleton Records, and whose sound fuses the grand qualities of post rock, the heavy heart of shoegaze and dreampop, and the weightiness of doom.
The album spans exactly one hour of music in nine tracks, some lengthier than others, but all of the same magnitude; epic, intense and profoundly melancholic, balancing between gloom and hope with elegance, and through the hopeful band's dexterous musicianship, as well as the observable great ear for production.
Hold, the album's most concise track and one of its highlights, is a contemplative piece, exemplary of the band's charming introvert spirit. Bryan Buchanan, guitarist and vocalist for Bound, explains: "It’s about how the good times keep you clinging tightly to something that’s bad overall, and it’s about holding onto something mostly because of how deeply you’re already invested in it, even as it’s slipping through your fingers. So we also wanted to evoke that feeling musically. For example, the drums begin in this very mechanical way to give a sense of methodical determination – only to degrade toward the end after everything has become more cacophonous and organic."
No Beyond was engineered and mixed by Kris Hilbert (The Body, Between the Buried and Me, The Love Language) at Legitimate Business and mastered by Alan Douches (Beach House, LCD Soundsystem, Converge) at West West Side.
Bound is Kotu Bajaj (bass), Dan Richardson (drums), Trish Harris (keys, backing vocals) and Bryan Buchanan (guitar, vocals).
boundlives.com
ZR