Sky Furrows

A bit of local love here for favorites Sky Furrows. The band’s second full length finds the Capital Region/Hudson Valley band back on the knife edge between psych and punk, chewing on copies of Easter and Dub Housing. The record finds members of Burnt Hills, Jaded Azurites, Spiral Wave Nomads, and Valley of Weights working through the modern sandpaper of the soul. The album is lodged in frustration and exasperation, but it rarely boils over into rage. The exception being the flame-licked centerpiece “Koba Grozny,” adapted from Martin Amis’s 2002 book Koba the Dread. Elsewhere the blood boils under the skin, but Schoemer doesn’t break a sweat Somehow the measured tension is far more effective than torn seams.

Her lyrics pick apart artifice, suburbia, wealth, and the hallucinatory hubris of modern living. The delivery scrapes the senses — a spoken word record set sliding through post-punk’s patterns and psych’s singed edges. The band’s debut set the stage, but there’s a deeper burn on Reflect and Oppose — a disdain that’s acrid, an exhaustion that’s overwhelming. It’s a record made for living through modern times. It’s a buffer for bullshit from all directions. Along with the new record, check out a video for “Shopping Bags,” assembled and edited by Jeff Economy from local favorite Snackpoint Charlie on WGXC.