Folsom, California’s busy math rock bees Former Animals are back, and they’re finally making it official with their first offering since 2012.
Many of us got an early taste of the sweetness on this years first of three Fecking Bahamas compilations, which you can check out here. However, there’s a little extra sizzle to go around here with an excellent mastering job from Toe‘s Mino Takaaki.
In general, DUCKBEAROTTER is sonically triumphant, and that’s no surprise – 2012
s Maladies is still an excellent listen today. But with the most recent release, the band certainly makes a massive leap in terms of production – “Mocha! Mocha! Mocha!” for instance, sounded great on the compilation, but you can it’s never sounded better than it does here.
And hey, it’s fun to compare the two – check it out the mastered version below.
The magic hardly stops there though, with the Midwest-emo inspired “Ain’t No Deacon,” and crunchy low end of “Cuzco Mike,” which was actually the second single from the EP before it’s official release, capturing so much gold if you’re a fan of bands like Cuzco, Clever Girl, Bearcubbin’!, and Youth League.
Former Animals tap and tempo-change their way through a pretty decadent spread for such a short runtime, sprinkling in arena-ready rock riffs and rollercoaster drums at every turn. The occasional atmospheric flourishes via pedals and production never detract or divert attention, but rather enhance a number of already memorable moments.
It’s exciting that with DUCKBEAROTTER the band managed to both stay true to their fun-loving, experimental roots and mature their sound at the same time. Fans of Former Animals’ previous work will still be entertained, but also, they’ll be several years older than they were when Maladies came out – so hopefully, they too have picked up some wisdom along the way. Here’s hoping that Former Animals stick around and drop more instrumental heat as soon as possible.
Is it weird that we assume because the band is no longer comprised of animals, it has to contain human members? Is that wrong? Oh, just weird. Got it. Anyway, check out Former Animals and the rest of their work here. If you wanna warm our bones with some coffee, do so here, you wild and crazy guys. Coming up we’ve got Hey! Tonal, The Bob Lazar Story, Teen Prime, and more. Thanks for reading!