EP Review: Box - Born To Crawl
Reviewed by Matthew Williams
It’s quite hard to know where to start with this one. As I sit here listening to the four song EP from multi-instrumentalist Andrew Stromstad, my head is all over the place with the sounds that are coming at me. Obviously, this is the purpose, as the press release states that it full of “genre-defying ambition”, but will people buy into the immersive experience when they listen to it.
The tracks are certainly intriguing, as they take you on a journey of dreams, nightmares and memories, whilst having minimal layers of musical arrangements. However, it is thought provoking and extremely ambitious and I really admire the wide range of instruments that Stromstad has used for the recording.
“Born to Crawl” is the opening track and it has that almost 80’s goth pop feel to it. You can feel the emotion in the voice, as the lyrics are “etched with the memory of a friend lost in the 2011 Tohoku tsunami” The simple bass line is like someone tugging at your heart strings, and you’ll be moved when hearing it. Then you get something completely different, as “Exposed” is a “Thin Lizzy-inspired anthem”. You get a bit of a fuzzy guitar tone coming across in parts, and it has that feel of a dream sequence and just when you think you’ve got it figured out and it’s flowing nicely, you a crescendo of noises that are “sourced from PETA commercials”. With all this in mind, I will refer you back to my first paragraph, are you getting it now?
“Ayla” is number three on the listing and begins with a brass band section which totally throws me initially, but it grows stronger as the song crawls along. It isn’t a slow cumbersome feeling, but one that makes you want to get up and dance. This is named after a “recurring figure in Stromstad’s dreams” and I think people would like to know more about, as his dreams must be one hell of a trip!!
The EP is ended with closing number “Taku” which almost sounds like it wouldn’t be out of place on a Sleep Token album, as the build up is emotional and powerfully delivered vocally. When that horn section floats into the soundscape, you can sense a song that is draped in nostalgia “inspired by childhood winters spent near Alaska’s Taku Lake” and has an icy chill flowing all the way through it. This EP has a myriad of sounds to explore and keep you excited whilst essentially being quite minimalist, and Stromstad has pushed those boundaries to another limit. So step inside and submerge yourself in his world.
