PeeP on PoP- Brown Recluse

Brown Recluse- Evening Tapestry (Slumberland- 2011)

~by Gabe McBride

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The Brown Recluse spider is primarily native to the American South and Southwest, but you would never know it talking to the methamphetamine users of the Pacific Northwest, something my day job allows me to do much more frequently than I would prefer. When people use meth, they often get sores on different part s of their bodies, primarily due to picking at themselves during the jittery hours (known as tweaking) after the 30 odd minute long high and also frequently getting infections at injection sites from using dirty needles to “slam” the crank directly into their veins. The reason I bring this up here, is that it has become sort of a joke in the drug and alcohol treatment community when tweakers say the ugly, scabbed over sores on their faces and arms are from Brown Recluse spider bites, a spider that doesn’t even live in this part of the country. Plus, a real Brown Recluse bite looks like (please do not click here, really) this. Which is ironic, to me at least, because Brown Recluse (the band) could not seem more removed from the high pitched, scabs, dirt, and Mountain Dew world of your average meth-head. 

What Brown Recluse (the band) are, is a tastefully spaced out indie pop band, more than twee but less than bombastic. Evening Tapestry owes much of its success to the band’s take on 60’s pop, literate, labyrinthine lyrics, and… game show organ music. On more than one album track, the band combines bits of chintzy (in a good way) synth-pop and breezy folk guitar for an interesting, appropriately cheesy 70’s afternoon TV game show vibe (Card Sharks and Let’s Make a Deal are for some reason, eerily specific images that recur in my mind while listening to Evening Tapestry). I realize that this all sounds overly critical, but I really don’t mean for it to, because Brown Recluse are an obviously ambitious band. They manage to be mature and adolescent, experimental, but very formal. And Evening Tapestry is a truly fun listen.  

For Fans of: Beulah, Quasi