By J.J. Anselmi
Fever Prone Circus Owned is Bloodpine’s debut LP, but you’d never guess. Each song, as well as the album as a whole, exhibits a mature sense of structure, instrumentation, and subtlety. With equal parts light and dark, Fever Prone Circus Owned conjures images of immense natural landscapes and a deteriorating small town America.
The opener, “That Pinewood,” starts with broken country vocals, which float through a symphonic cloud of synth. This section gives way to palm-muted acoustic guitar notes, sounding like a lost riff from Bruce Springsteen’s Nebraska. A resounding kick drum then leads Bloodpine into a chorus that’s simultaneously optimistic and hopeless. Very few bands use drum programming well, and Bloodpine is definitely one of them.
One of the amazing things about this Minneapolis-based duo is how much they pack into each song while also allowing their compositions to breathe. “Painted Shut Sashes” is only 3:03, but it deftly traverses from lightly swinging electric guitar into the chorus—a valley of haunting vocals and atmospheric synth. Unlike many other ambient groups, Bloodpine has a heightened ability to write chorus harmonies that get stuck in your head but refrain from unnecessary repetition.
The album’s strange title comes from a line in the ninth song, “Vegas Elvis.” It’s a drifting piece, carried by slowly paced acoustic guitar and delicately overlaid lead. Erik Tasa’s soft vocals move through these sounds like an old Chevy crawling down an isolated Minnesota highway. Given the song’s title, the lines “Still I’m fever prone / still I’m circus owned” seemingly allude to the tragedy of the Elvis impersonator. It’s easy to laugh at celebrity look-alikes, but this song does something much more difficult, subtly capturing the sadness and self-imprisonment that occupation would entail.
Bloodpine describes their sound as “heavy music that isn’t heavy,” which fits perfectly. Fever Prone Circus Owned channels the darkness that bands like Neurosis and Isis (the band) explore, but by utilizing tools from folk greats like Great Lake Swimmers, Nick Drake, and J. Tillman.
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