We’ve updated our Terms of Use to reflect our new entity name and address. You can review the changes here.
We’ve updated our Terms of Use. You can review the changes here.

Smiling Lines

by Gloop

/
  • Streaming + Download

    Includes unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
    Purchasable with gift card

      £7 GBP  or more

     

  • Limited Edition Cassette Tape
    Cassette + Digital Album

    Includes unlimited streaming of Smiling Lines via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.

    Sold Out

1.
Buckets 01:45
2.
3.
Fire 03:01
4.
5.
6.
Blue Bird 02:27
7.
Stripes 01:57
8.
9.
Turn Inside 02:51
10.

about

Gloop - Smiling Lines

BH010

CD release through Grimoire Records: grimoirerecords.bandcamp.com/album/smiling-lines

'Your Heart Claps For Me' video premiere via Birthday Cake For Breakfast: bit.ly/30i3vWA

Baltimore noise rockers Gloop bring the world “Smiling Lines,” a splattering Jackson Pollock painting of a full-length record, the follow up to their 2018 debut “The Tourist.”

Gloop play a kind of skewed rock music that recalls Shudder to Think, and the Pixies at their harshest and weirdest. The band manage to be abrasive but not particularly heavy, catchy but not especially poppy. It’s music that will drive some people you know out of the room, and yet you genuinely can dance to it.

Guitarist Dom Gianninoto use a thin trebly tone yet plays big chunky chords, slabs of dissonance that sound wrong and broken, but repeated rhythmically so they become oddly compelling grooves - you might call it glitch-rock. Bassist Blake Douglas adds the power of often distorted bass to Gianninoto’s anti-riffs, as well flourishes of melody, tuneful moments that shine and then break up within the chaos. Holding it all together and driving it forward is Max Detrich’s drumming, ranging from the pounding energetic maximalism of early Nirvana-era to more restrained rock and post-punk beats, helping the songs to open up and to calm down, as needed.

Probably the most distinctive aspect of Gloop’s sound is Gianninoto’s vocal performance. While not placed particularly high in this mix, his voice is highly noticeable as it shrieks, squeals, and skronks all over “Smile Lines” like a saxophone in a free jazz composition. Whether sung, screamed, or falsetto, his vocals are exclusively high-pitched, sounding like they are at the top of his range, sounding like a man physically straining. Within those high pitches comes a range of strange and ambiguous emotional tenors. Gianninoto always sounds manic, but manic is a level of energy, not an emotion. Is he feeling pained? Enraged? Sad? Terrified? Excited? Playful? Delighted? It sounds like bits of all of those by turns, sometimes with jarringly rapid transitions between them. If you heard someone vocalizing like this on the bus, you probably wouldn’t sit by them, yet if you have a heart, you’d feel for them and hope someone is looking out for them.

At the end of the day, these ten tracks of sloshing and often caustic weirdness are the sound of band who seem to genuinely like their audience. Some abrasive music pushes you away and shouts at you, but Gloop gives you a clammy handshake that makes you smile despite yourself. Somehow, Gloop manage to turn their spattering weirdness into hooks you’ll want to hear again (but which you probably won’t be able to explain to your friends with more traditional tastes). And each time you hear them, you’ll notice another element of the layers of sound.

“Smiling Lines” is out as of 27th September on cassette and digital download from Grimoire Records in the U.S. and Buzzhowl Records in the U.K. “Smiling Lines” defies conventions and expectations but it does so ultimately to satisfy your rock and roll itches. Slather on Gloop. You won’t regret it.

For fans of Pixies, Mclusky, Sleaford Mods, US Maple, Drahla

(words by Nate Holdren)

credits

released September 27, 2019

Gloop is Max Detrich, Dominic Gianninoto, and Blake Douglas.
Lyrics by Gloop and Tanner Haid.
“Smiling Lines” was recorded, mixed and mastered by Noel Mueller of Grimoire Records in March of 2019.
Art by Mindy Sizemore.

license

all rights reserved

tags

about

Buzzhowl Records UK

Bringing it up and taking it down since 2018

contact / help

Contact Buzzhowl Records

Streaming and
Download help

Redeem code

Report this album or account

If you like Smiling Lines, you may also like: