EP Spotlight: The Most Withered Of Flowers by brushburn

 

By Ryan Germ
Coming out of the Kutztown/Lehigh Valley area we got the debut EP by young emocore outfit brushburn. If you like shit like Saetia, Orchid, Swing Kids, and really all that somewhat sassy real screamo shit then this might be an early contender from EPOTY.

The EP kicks off with the opener Ballet With Handguns, which itself starts with a moody sounding riff before stopping and going into a fast part with frantic, somewhat high pitched vocals. The fast part stops and goes into a very stop and start part interspersed with leads before going into an arpeggiated part which builds into a slower old school screamo influenced part. A few leads ring out sending us into a breakdown to close out the opener. Very solid way to open the record.

Tongue Tied is the next track and it kicks off with ambient guitar, sounding like a less chorus-y version of Ceremony’s Into The Wayside. The track kicks into high gear with the verse, the main riff of this track is very good as it builds to higher notes and caps off with semi twinkly leads. After the verse the track slows and goes into an arpeggiated part with soft hits on the rim of the snare which then goes into a breakdown. The guitar has this weird tone, it sounds like if you ever tried to experiment with a capo on an electric guitar, I still enjoy it nonetheless. The breakdown drops out for this nice groovy lead in on the bass before a fill signals in the next breakdown. There’s another arpeggiated part after the second breakdown with somewhat soft drums in the background giving a feeling of closure to end the track.

The next song Overcoming What You Hate also begins with an arpeggiated part, which then transitions into a bouncy type of verse. The production on this EP is very hard hitting and is bass heavy. Anyways a side to side part occurs after the bouncy-ish verse which goes into another arpeggiated part but this time over drums that play a Skramz type of beat. Then the bass has this really really nice and groovy lead into a fast part that feels very frantically paced. It goes into a very stop and start part where only a lead plays out over vocalist Nathan Gammons vocals. A short nu metal esque breakdown ends the track off.

Hearts is the penultimate track which begins with some distorted yet somewhat dreamy guitar. The verse comes in and the dreamy riff is replaced with a higher riff before some chugs replace said high riff. The chugs go into a breakdown that switches tones completely to sound crunchy. Then it goes into a dreamy arpeggiated part over a standard Skramz type of drum beat. It cuts to just bass with very far away sounding vocals before the vocals get clear to send us into the final mosh part of the track to end it.

The final track is titled Splitting Away, it starts with a nice bass run before going into the main riff. The verse kicks off with Nathan’s vocals over a snare roll and guitars ringing out. It then goes into the main riff before switching to a twinkly part (which had a nice drum fill kick it off I must add). Everything cuts out just for the arpeggiated part to keep going before it starts to build with a lead sending it into high gear. The mosh part that follows ends the track and by extension the EP. Very good debut I’m excited to see what they do next.