Growing up on Long Island will allow for an acquaintance with punk and hardcore music. This writer can tell you this much. He can also tell you it can grow kind of tiresome with age, and a longing for some cathartic “other,” some intimacy, might well displace the need for such an agitated release. Shoegaze and dreampop seem a perfect middle ground, as exhibited by (now) Brooklyn quartet Weed Hounds, who are readying their new EP, Double Life, out this fall on Don Giovanni Records. The title track, and subsequent first single, is an earsplitting continuation from their 2014 full-length, incorporating scorched and swirling guitars, hard-hitting rhythms, all enveloped in melodic charm and vocal serenity.
Weed Hounds “Double life” sets out steadily charged like a well-forecasted weather system, the fortitude of the instruments simultaneously breaking and mending a weary heart. Singer Laura Catalano serves as comforter, simply in the tone of her voice. She leads by example, calming us down by being calm, herself. The whole time. And none of this is to say that any of the desperation or fervor of a punk upbringing has lessened any. The volume, the immensity of the sound, paired with its melancholic beauty, constitutes deeper, perhaps newfound passions, more relatable and empathetic than ever.
