Blood Sister (Noah)

Blood Sister feel like a jawbreaker, like a sugary sweet core of melody and beauty, but instead of being wrapped up in tongue-cutting white goo, it’s wrapped up in angular, discordant fuzz and a healthy dose of barbed wire. Formed from the ashes of Brooklyn band Night Manager and the psych-garage-Beach Boys goodness of San Francisco’s Ganglians, Blood Sister does not hope to capture the ear of the average listener. Oh yes, lingering within the truly enjoyable noise and fuzz is a melodic pop song, but this isn’t a hanger-on, struggling to find release, not at all. Instead, the more melodic sensibilities of the three musicians is content to lie a few layers below the noise, beautiful and simple, but viewed (listened, even) through a dinged and scratched piece of glass. It feels like standing on top of a low-budget aquarium with glass floors, the flora and fauna of the deep sea just barely visible through the algae-scummed window below you. Blood Sister, seemingly, purposefully obscure the prettier aspects of their music, so that when it does emerge, through the hard-cut guitar riffs, it’s that much more attractive. A fleeting glimpse of a second life, buried just below the surface.