The Tunnel

Carver Brothers Lullaby

(Glorious Alchemical Co.)

Record Review by Marcel Feldmar

A slow spooky intro into a dark psycho garage broken croon. The shadows fall all over the place, but the drive and rhythms keep the move going straight and true. Broken heart blues thrown spastic into the approaching night. There are some hits of Nick Cave, like in a Birthdaay Party sort of way, but there’s also a New York punk vibe coming through as well, like a harsher and sparser Voidoids, filtered through some strange No-Wave Lo-Fi art-damaged flashback.

I hear a little of that dark gothic backwoods sound that I like when it slips out of a 16 Horsepower song, but here it’s like they switched out the old Americana for a slightly fresher and more concrete based skyscraper vision. Travelling along the gutters and rain swept sidewalks instead of the old countryside dirt roads. The Tunnel also reminds me of an old Seattle band I adored, Laundry. Probably not many readers will have heard of them, but man – they killed me.

There’s a nice Lux Interior growl, with maybe a little Jon Spencer attitude, that slips out at times, taking the dirty garage into a slow lowdown kind of Blues Explosion, that’s just a little more Pussy Galore. “Like A Hungry Knife” sways like an evil slow-dance, “Shifty” has this strangled guitar riff that moves against a hard kicked drumbeat, all psycho-instrumental, and then “Devil’s Doorstep” hits with a sparse vocal that moves somewhere between the Bad Seeds and the Violent Femmes. Gothically punk and beautiful.