Spirit of the Beehive : You’ll Have to Lose Something
A few months ago, I saw Jane Schoenbrun’s I Saw the TV Glow, a film which dives into complex topics of identity and growing up in the suburbs. It left me feeling like I had eaten too much candy, gone too far into the pinks and purples shown in the film. It’s both beautiful and sickening, which is a feeling that Spirit of the Beehive’s latest album, You’ll Have to Lose Something, similarly evokes. The tracks zig zag between sonically saccharine and statically harsh. Just like I Saw the TV Glow, Spirit of the Beehive aims to use art as a vehicle to convey the difficult parts of our reality, finding a mode of catharsis within their work.
On opening track “DESTRUCTION,” the Philadelphia-based band—comprising Zack Schwartz (lead vocals, guitar, keyboards), Rivka Ravede (lead vocals, bass, percussion), and Corey Wichlin (keyboards, drums, guitar)—immediately jump into one of their noisiest tracks to date, as a medley of distorted sounds engulf Schwartz’s lyrics. Standout track “LET THE VIRGIN DRIVE” is a sinisterly charming fusion of twangy pop and folk undertones, blending Schwartz’s Stephen Malkmus-like vocals with otherworldly violin riffs and pianos that sound as if they’ve been recorded from deep within the ocean. As the song comes to a close, it spirals into a percussive dimension with a punchy beat, eventually meeting with its preceding instrumentals. Schwartz said about it in a statement, “It’s about unrequited love and making up a situation or whole life in your head… The other person finally ‘sees you’ and your ‘problems are solved,’ but they aren’t, really.” Similarly, there’s an unrequited path within the band’s sound, as they navigate from one subgenre to the next, reveling in the need to feel anew.
Many of the tracks find the band leaning more heavily into their electronic side, like “SUN SWEPT THE EVENING RED,” which opens like an outtake from Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark but quickly reveals itself to to be laced with something darker and more brash. “FOUND A BODY” resembles a dream state, its instrumentals melding into a hypnotic and lush swelling of percussive beats and guitars. However, the band brings to mind the shoegazey, shimmering side of 2018’s Hypnic Jerks’ on “1/500.” Employing an off-kilter time signature and a triumphant horn sample, the song calls back to the band’s roots, a more polished echo of their past work.
The album’s title implies an acceptance of sorts—acknowledging that to grow, we have to release and let go of our preconceived notions. In a way, this sort of freedom translates into the album’s 12 tracks, removing our expectations of what Spirit of the Beehive can create, as they go farther into their experimental niche. By confronting their own personal experiences and losses, they’re able to dive deeper into new, and inevitable, landscapes of sound.
Label: Saddle Creek
Year: 2024
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