(2018) Straya - Sobereyed



Review: 
…Minnesota “rock quartet” Straya have a preternatural understanding of this phenomenon. It helps when you have two very different singers trading duties and a classically trained rhythm section at your disposal, but they deserve the credit no less. It’s almost foolish to try and list all the genres at play across Sobereyed’s 60 minutes. It has to be experienced, not just described. The band employ guest vocals, cornet solos, and a stellar production team, smartly surrounding themselves with players that also couldn’t care less about which genre is at play. 
The results of this show themselves across the length of Sobereyed and within each song. Although their 2016 EP I Don’t Know What Anyone Is Talking About Anymore sounded wonderful, its 2 tracks suffered from being 180 degrees apart. Not so on Sobereyed. “Acoustic Song (for rock quartet and fixed media)” contains working transitions between krautrock, minimalism, and folk. The waveform alone is a thing of beauty, with brief peaks that break up the wind chime drone and, eventually, a veritable pop tune towards the end. The acoustic guitar is washed out by arrhythmic drumming and hazy sound collages. Featuring some of the album’s only discernible lyrics from Cody Nelson, it’s a necessary palette cleanser for the rest of the records teeth. 
“Leach” operates similarly, but in a violent context. Toby Ramaswamy’s hemiola drum pattern and Sanjeev Mishra’s pained screams pollinate the tracks first act. Under an atmosphere of razor-sharp synths and distortion, the song serves as a reminder of the screamo proclivities of the Twin Cities DIY scene which birthed a then college-aged Straya. Similar to Pile or Deafheaven, the band only employ aggression when artistically necessary. They don’t scream or use drones just because they can. They use them in service of the album’s arc. 
In the wake of its immensely rewarding instrumentals, Sobereyed sadly lacks a lyrical narrative. With so many vocalists and styles at play, it’s hard to know what the band are talking about. Closing track “K.” seeks to wrap up the themes anyway, piecing together the album’s other track titles to tell a story about wishing someone would shut up. “Your knowledge is no credential here/Your tongue is nothing,” wails Nelson. 


Tracklist: 
01 - Timid.flac 
02 - Acoustic Song (for rock quartet and fixed media).flac 
03 - Hollowring.flac 
04 - Made Lighter.flac 
05 - Leach.flac 
06 - A Laugh.flac 
07 - Tongue Is Nothing.flac 
08 - K.flac 

Summary: 
Country: USA 
Genre: post-rock