Burly - Self Titled Demon

How often do you decide to listen to an unknown band based on the description of their music, instrumentation or song lyrics? I’d say often. At least I do. No exception to the rule with Burly, upstate New York quintet and their debut EP Self Titled Demon. 

When initially the music is described as ‘their version of slowcore’ or as they say themselves, ‘non-urgency’ and the main instruments are sax and a vibraphone, how can you resist? On top of that, you learn that lyrics to one song (“Kent Lame”) is inspired by an anonymous story from 1980 that they found on a Grateful Dead message board, you just have to take a listen.

Thankfully, personal instinct and taste were right this time around. Burly write and play their music as if they have infinite time on their hands, expressing what they feel and know to try to make every note and sound count and making sure they should be exactly where they placed them. The case in point is the two best tunes on the album - “Kent Lane” and “Infinite Broken”. 

Taking on the elements used by the slowcore ‘experts’ like Pond, Pedro The Lion or late great Jason Molina with their slow developed sound dominated by not so ‘regular’ instrumentation for this kind of music can extract every nuance not only from the music but also the lyrics by the main composer Ryan Stewart and their non-performing member Timothy Furgal.

Part of Burly’s ability to do so might lie in the fact that they also took their time to record these songs at home during a two-year period. Again, a relaxed approach that yielded results.

Although some 18 minutes of music is not quite a solid base to make a firm judgment, Burly seem to be on their way to occupy our late night listening pleasures in time to come. And slowly at that.