SUSS

The past few years have found the ambient country coven taking shape. Stretched out along an imaginary landscape — dessert dry, but somehow still hung with haze — the genre has found itself a beacon among Cosmic Americana’s outcroppings. One of the leading lights peaking through the haze is SUSS, the crew of Brooklyn stalwarts who’ve not only helped carve the genre into its modern era, but who have taken the genre itself up as a sort of banner. On their latest album, Birds & Beasts, the band delves further into the caves and caverns of the sound they call home. Twilight slinks over the record, unfurling with a slow and sanguine curl. The songs are cool, humid, vaporous, eventually burning off their haze for moments at at time as songs stretch into the early morning light.

What sets SUSS apart is that, while there’s stillness and meditation to their works, there’s also a coiled menace. Album closer “Migration” feels like it broods, watching the curls of sweat steam under the streetlights. Similarly, “Prey” rocks back and forth with an unease that’s not made for the background. The band might be working in ambience, but SUSS create a sound that creases the listener. As bucolic as songs like “Restlesss” and “Overstory” can be, the band is just as ready to course through the veins with a nicotine twinge. The new album shows them in fine form — blissful, blistered, bitten, and bittersweet.

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