Love on My Mind

Description

With Love on My Mind the six-song mini-album, mixed by Claudius Mittendorfer (Tennis, Parquet Courts, Johnny Marr) Bambara condense all the energy and darkness that have made them so compelling and rearrange it into something defiantly new.

Opening track, Slither in the Rain, all hissing high-hat and spectral synthlines, is a true statement of intent. Its minimal and atmospheric, foregrounding Batehs raw vocals as he introduces one of Love on My Minds main characters years after the events of the album are over, a lonely man who throws bottles at airplanes and dances a two-step in the pattern of a figure-8. While Bateh has always been adept at character sketches, tracks like Slither introduce a newfound vulnerability that runs true through the entire album and cause the songs to hit on a more human level.

Similarly, Point And Shoot in which each stanza describes the louche, lawless scenes of rooftop girls / standing shoulder-to-shoulder, naked figures with their hips / cocked, busted up jaws, and couches full of burn- holes captured by the snapshots of Love on My Minds female lead displays an autobiographical intimacy that is not as apparent in Bambaras previous releases. This tenderness is echoed on Birds, a rare love song (from which the EPs title is derived), and album closer Little Wars, a gripping finale of loneliness and isolation.

But while these songs may display a softer side of Bambara, its important to note that they havent lost the thrill of what attracted so many people to them in the first place. Mythic Love (featuring vocals from Bria Salmena), with its driving bassline and ricocheting guitar lines, brings to mind past rave-ups like Serafina and Sunbleached Skulls but obliterates them in the process, while Feelin Like A Funeral a dangerously oscillating tale of a city knifing is probably the most thrillingly anthemic song the band have ever recorded.

Taken together, Love on My Mind amounts to another massive step forward for Bambara the boldest thing theyve ever done and the sound of yet another breakthrough.

Engrossing, dark and irresistible an adventurous group, who just keep getting better all the time. CLASH

Never anything less than captivating. Upset

What Athens, Georgia bunch Bambara do, they do very well the trios

commitment to the dark side is never in question. DIY

Bambara are ice cold and sharp as a knifes edge. Loud & Quiet

Brooklyn based doom-mongers delight the trio go further than most in their quest to rattle. Q (4/5)

For fans of Daughters, Protomartyr, IDLES, King Krule, Ice Age.