Circumambulation

A 2013 post at MetaFilter alerted me to the existence of the Dallas-based trio True Widow: "a collaboration between a woodworker, a screenprinter, and a makeup artist". The post characterized their style as "a bone-crunching slab of murky distortion" and "heavy, hypnotic, jam-based music that takes as much from slowcore and shoegaze as it does from stoner rock." I liked what I heard and ordered their then-latest album Circumambulation on CD.

This was only a few months after my wife had died. I was a new widower, struggling through the fog of grief, and this slow, sombre and heavy music was a consolation. These were dark songs that seemed fitting for a painful time. There's something of a 'goth' sensibility at play, though not in a way that much resembles the older goth bands.

Guitarist D.H. Phillips does most of the singing, with bassist Nicole Estill providing lead vocals on a couple of the tracks, including the hypnotic highlight 'Four Teeth'. The songs seem simple, and minimal, with drummer Slim TX showing admirable restraint in his straight-ahead backbeats. Other favourite tracks of mine on the album are 'S:H:S' and 'Numb Hand'.

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All Wrapped Up

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