Bruise Bath
Philadelphia gloom band Bruise Bath has been undergoing a lengthy and arduous metamorphosis from its initial existence as a tool of vocalist/guitarist Zak Krone’s expression, to its current state as a more collaborative creative ensemble. Drawing influence predominantly from bands like Slint, Pixies, Wind’s Poem-era Mount Eerie, Pallbearer, Butthole Surfers, and the perhaps more surprising selections of Korn and The Beach Boys, Bruise Bath steadily crafts exceedingly dark, heavy rock with moaning, reverb-drenched vocals from Krone and singer Gab Landrum. Bruise Bath’s new self-titled album, is the culmination of literal years of a growing passion that has spread from one person to six.
Bruise Bath’s second LP shows the group at their creative best. Having spent the better part of a decade developing into the sextet it is now, Bruise Bath expanded heavily upon the gloomy, atmospheric, post-metal sound spawned from the near 20 year friendship of Krone and baritone guitarist Daniel Merchant. Not through any unwillingness of Krone’s did Bruise Bath spend the last ten years getting to this point, though. More often than it may seem, artists need to pass through the lasting influence of many different musicians and experiences to become what they’re truly meant to be. From 2016 to 2020, Bruise Bath released a demo (Introduction), 2 EP’s (III and The Leash, The Lash, The Veil) and a previously self-titled album, each work crafted with help from a number of musicians Krone knew from the Philadelphia area. Throughout this period, Bruise Bath played infrequently, with Krone writing all the songs and parts, but actually functioning as the band’s drummer and lone vocalist.
After The Leash, The Lash, The Veil, Bruise Bath was still in the process of crafting a more concrete lineup. With Krone, Merchant, and Landrum already locked in, the introduction of drummer Jackson Miller, and help from collaborators Kevin Paschall and Daniil Zadorozhnyy, Bruise Bath produced their next work, Unyielding Optimism. Serving as another effort in their well-established practice of serving up slow dirges of equal parts gloom and post-metal, Unyielding Optimism was 4 songs of painstakingly delicate guitar strumming and harmonics hung in the air between sparse rhythms at slow tempos. The songs, “What Future?” (about the death of one of Krone’s students to gun violence) and “Dogcatcher,” both break this mood by swerving into crushingly heavy territory for portions of the track, but each of those parts are still bookended by the Bruise Bath’s pre-disposition for soft, slow elegies.
On Bruise Bath, two songs have no drums at all. With the lineup now filled out by guitarist/vocalist Aaron Pekar and bassist Nick Shellenberger (formerly of Cleric), Bruise Bath is in its most creatively centered period yet. Each member asserts an equal level of creative control. Nothing is left on the table, and it makes the arrival of the album feel right on time. Recorded, engineered, and produced by fellow artist and friend of the band, Sean Reilly at Philadelphia’s Studio North, the self-titled second LP bears the feeling of friends and family in every fiber of its existence. It’s an acknowledgment of a certain feeling of powerlessness brought on by the cruelty of the global ruling class, an understanding, however, housed inside of a larger instinct to survive and persevere. That house is made a home by that survival and perseverance made possible by mutual support and care between people.
“Bruise Bath is about appreciating the wildfire smoke from 500 miles away for blocking out the rays of the sun so that the heat dome boiling your home is slightly mitigated,” the band stated. “Bruise Bath is about hunkering down with the ones you love because you have no other choice.”
Bruise Bath is in this place now. Their second LP is 8 tracks of Bruise Bath’s darkest material yet. With mastering by James Plotkin, the album is crushingly heavy, depressed to the point of lethargy, and brimming with a despondency of the collective grief of its members as they mirror back the horrors of the 21st century to a world in perpetual mourning. It is a collective mourning, and Bruise Bath celebrates that mourning as one of the few ways left to connect with each other, and with you.
Bruise Bath arrives via Strange Mono November 6.
Contact
Email: bruisebath[at]gmail.com
Press
“Philadelphia’s Bruise Bath make heavy rock music in a catch-all sense, but tune to a brutal earnestness that abandons any pidgeon-holing genre platitudes…“This year I will finally be myself / What have I done to my beautiful body?” Krone laments on “Blood on My Tongue,” a line part of a poem up for personal interpretation. It’s a sober first taste of the Bruise Bath’s best record yet.” – Post-Trash (Pat Pilch)