ALBUM // Backxwash – Deviancy

Post by Misha

Thumping darkness. Thick, with a pulse. Light from the lick of flames dances and disappears mercurially, sliding in and out of the eyes that blink it hungrily in.

The music is a place for chaos and rhythm to live together. Untamable noise and distortion are threatening to burst out of restraints made in a computer and on the drums. They need each other, though. The push needs the pull, the river needs the valley, and so forth. The tension in the middle is too intoxicating. It is pure heat. Fury. Joy. Fullness.

For much of Deviancy we balance on this knife’s edge. Veins full of adrenaline, tipping backwards and forwards in the moment just before flight, or falling. Inching towards combustion. Winding tighter and tighter without snapping.

Until, in between battles, there is a moment of sleep. A softening of the muscles, a warm bath with lavender and rose. An unfurling, a nakedness of spirit sweet with tears of relief. Pink light falls like rain over everything, unmasking demons and showing them to be smaller than feared, with a hint of what could be gentleness behind their eyes.

This album ends like a new day breaking over the horizon. It infuses the air with old power and expansiveness. The landscape remains unchanged but the view is somehow clearer, more solid. Even as the last notes sound there is the sense that a new chapter is already being written somewhere in the trees.

Deviancy is Backxwash‘s debut album, out now on Grimalkin Records. Buy it here. Proceeds from the digital sales of the album will go towards Nationz Foundation, an LGBTQIA+ advocacy group providing education for HIV prevention and general wellness.