If the best new music is truly fated for discovery, then Russian Baths are one those bands hidden in plain view within Brooklyn’s underground rock scene that remind us just how broken the music industry can be. Beginning with the greatly promising 2019 debut LP, Deep Fake, co-guitarists and vocalists Luke Koz and Jess Rees have professed an understanding of what they want their stylistic aesthetic to present through an academia of noise rock, post-hardcore, post-punk, and shoegaze influences without explicitly committing to one single corner. Add in a touch of darkness that taps into human fear, they sound like a reality-based horror film soundtrack sequencing everything from bouts of imposter syndrome, sleep paralysis, serial killers, and 1984 encroaching closer and closer upon us. Their live shows level all of that up, performing in a way that puts many of today’s publicity-fueled, indie rock buzz bands — who court thousands on giant festival stages while they stand there looking lifeless in the process — to shame. Other bands might break, but Russian Baths don’t break any sweats evidently from these surrounding distractions, instead focusing on accentuating a strength in detail to their craft and continuing to mold it into their own likeness alone on their sophomore effort, Mirror. Now joined by Kyle Garvey on bass, Koz and Rees head deeper into their ongoing exploration of the psyche through sound, rendering it as one less greyscale in its shadows than found on their debut. Their songwriting remains distinctly devotional not only to NYC’s past experimental art rock scene, but music held to a higher brow of standard in the manner its recorded and mixed. Louder bursts of noise rock (“Vision [Dexadrine]”, “Bind”) balance out meandering, dreamier comedowns (“Furnace”, “Secret Keys”) purposed in atypical arrangements. We’ve been rarely privy to this kind of curation in recording dynamics since when Blonde Redhead, Interpol, Autolux, the Horrors, and other accidentally popular indie Aughts rockers delighted the darker spectrum through retexturizing genre and challenging the spaces they inhabited. Thus, it’s a welcome consideration when smaller artists are still capable of cultivating the pristine through the rougher edges of the stereo. Most interesting, however, is how Mirror hears the band blurring their own boundaries more audibly by entering the melodic hardcore realm (“Hunger”, “Always Night”.) They could have safely stuck to angular post-punk refinements or slathering a dense film of shoegaze all over the canvas with technically proficient effect, but that would have been expectant. Instead, they’ve gone further down rabbit holes of inner anxieties, tension, and release as a means to push their sound outward and in turn, redefining its prism effect. For those who prefer their rock alternatives with equal risk and distortion as much as there is a clear reflection in its sound, Russian Baths’ Mirror sees you in the dark.

Highlights: “Vision (Dexadrine)”, “Hunger”, “Always Night”

Russian Bath’s Mirror is available now on Good Eye Records.

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