Aquarian Blood: A Love That Leads To War 12″

Description

A Love That Leads To War is a clear departure in style and mood for Memphis Tennessees Aquarian Blood. The bands 2017s debut LP on Goner Records, Last Nite In Paradise, is a chaotic punk epic, rising and falling like the soundtrack to a paranoid nightmare. As a live act, the six-piece bands sonic atrocity left clubs and house shows around Memphis on life support. The bands follow up Goner release, A Love That Leads To War, is a more intimate offering of fifteen tracks. Indirectly sparked when full-band drummer Bill Curry was temporarily lost due to a broken arm, Aquarian Blood began playing out in February 2018 as a scaled-down, four-piece incarnation. This more personal album was written, recorded and (almost entirely) performed by founding husband / wife duo J.B. Horrell (Ex-Cult) and NOTS alum Laurel Horrell.

Just grazing the surface of the album can draw a line backwards from the acoustic entirety of A Love That Leads To War to Aquarian Bloods unsettling past. The opening track Theres A World is a finger-picked fever dream nailing the rarified beauty jumps into bed w/ horror sweet spot so squarely one cant believe its not a cover of some hippy hangover perfection dating back to the Nixon administration. Its no first-song / best-song hat trick, but rather a deft setup of the next thirty-nine minutes. No Place I Know, In the Water, and Their Dream would fit in well in the shimmier side of the Shimmy Disc catalog, and Thought Of Her is reminiscent of Damon and Naomi. Taken as a whole, though, this album retains the unsettling feel of the best atmospheric 60s loner psych better than any of the above, and the occasional addition of swirly moog and staccato drum pad beats keep it from slipping into nostalgia. A Love That Leads To War is the perfect sound to erase the summer and soundtrack the low-hum of cold-weather anxiety.