Cassette Review: Giddeon Gallows "Critter"

$8 //
https://drewciferscott.bandcamp.com/album/critter //

What do you call music that is without genre?   This isn't a trick or even a question at all really.   I keep listening to music which defies genres though.  I feel like a lot of the larger sites who write about music don't like to have things seem so vague but I love hearing music I can't describe, music I can't simply say "Oh it's like Best Coast meets Beach House" (which are two totally real bands I think)

Giddeon Gallows begins "Critter" with electronics, beats and singing.   It reminds me in many ways, at first, of "Head Like A Hole" era Nine Inch Nails or even that New Order type of sound.    There is a certain darkness to it and in a more modern sense it also reminds me of Erica Eso (which of course means I need to also mention Prince by name)  In this sort of but not really rock way I hear the music which belongs on cassette: Primitive Radio Gods and something along the lines of that Blue October song "Into the Ocean".

This has definite soul.  To pull a line from the cassette itself, there is "no way around it".    So it really doesn't catch me off guard too much when the next song has a guest spot on it by a rapper.   There are actually more than one songs on here with a rapper, paying a little nod to Darko the Super I think (Perhaps Darko the Super will end up on a song somewhere?)  Even though it can be a little bit trippy, going into that R&B realm wasn't too much of a leap.

At first I thought this could be that synth based 1980s/early 1990s rock music that was popular on cassette.  I thought, "Yes, that is where Gidden Gallows fits within the cassette collection".   But even before I heard the rap I felt this sort of sound on here which I cannot explain.   See, it's not full on any of the artists I want to put it with, and yet it somehow manages enough to tow the line with artists like Shai, BBD, Jodeci and even PM Dawn.  I mean, I never thought I would find something that would be the link between those cassettes and NIN, Simple Minds, etc. but apparently it does exist and it's fantastic.

Side B opens up with this personal type of bedroom feel as well.   I keep thinking I've heard this somewhere before.   Was it early Animal Flag?  Is it Sun Hammer?  I don't know.   But I feel like we're going to start hearing a lot more of it and I'll start tracing it back to Giddeon Gallows now.   Much like a cassette is personal, these songs have a personal feel to them, a confessional if you will, which is always welcome because it is important above all else for music to remain real.