Gerard Marcus
Some music has a rawness that’s almost primal, a visceral sound that sparks with angst and ecstasy. It’s not genre specific–anything from Ornette Coleman to Guerilla Toss to JPEGMAFIA generates this feeling in me. It’s an energy, the type that compels you to relax all the muscles in your body and throw yourself around like a rag doll. Gold Leather produces this kind of music.
Gold Leather is a four piece rock band from Austin, Texas that makes music that is in your face without being too full of itself. Their new single, “Churl,” is a searing tirade directed at an unnecessarily mean-spirited figure who plays dumb at the absurdity and consequences of their own actions. Gold Leather tells this tale well, with a raw vocal delivery that clashes its members’ voices against one another before they fall into eerie harmonies and tasteful screams. But the true primordial power of the song comes from the driving auditory forces, intricately layered drum, bass, and guitars. They intertwine and trip over each other as if trying to escape a monster that haunts their dreams. With “Churl,” Gold Leather has written a song that hits hard and fast, a freshly-triggered avalanche hurdling towards some undetermined end, and a great first offering from them for 2019.