If Thom Yorke ever lent his voice and rhythmic tendencies to My Bloody Valentine, the alt-indie scene would have imploded through everyone collectively losing their minds; the idea of what that would sound like ripples through Anymore, one of the standout singles, Anymore, from harper’s debut album, Breach.
Languid vocal notes stretch through the arrangement, drifting around the walls of distortion-maimed shoegaze guitars; each time the scuzz slips away, it leaves room for the sublimity within the melody to shine through the production alongside the ethereal voice and timbres of acoustic strings, juxtaposing the no-wavey noise that constantly feeds back floods of caustic energy from the amps.
Anymore is the kind of single that could reach you even in the darkest pit of despair, entrenched in its own sense of cultivated darkness, the kind of darkness which can only belong to the painfully self-aware, which, we imagine, comprises the vast majority of harper’s international fanbase, which they should be taking as a badge of cerebral honour.
The Detroit four-piece spent three years recording Breach, threading hundreds of guitar layers through pipe organ, string octet, piano and harp arrangements until the record became a colossal act of atmosphere. Produced by Nick West under the mentorship of Chris Vrenna, founding drummer of Nine Inch Nails, the album reflects its meticulous orchestration and the band’s obsessive devotion to aural purification.
Anymore is now available to stream on all major platforms, including Spotify.
Review by Amelia Vandergast