It's not often you see a band move away from a large music scene to find their big break. But that's exactly what Dasher singer/drummer Kylee Kimbrough did, leaving Atlanta for Bloomington, Indiana. After months of couch-surfing, Kimbrough was back in action, assembling a new group — and the result is an absolutely vicious, fearless record.
Kimbrough is a force of nature, drenching her shrieks in echo and delay, giving her voice an almost nightmarish character. And where Dasher may arguably lack in technical ability, they more than make up for it with pure energy and power and their ability to sonically demolish anything in their path.
Clocking in at just over half an hour, Sodium is over before you know it, but the record demands your attention the whole way through. It's captivating in its artful chaos; opener "We Know So" begins with ringing feedback before Kimbrough leaps into action behind the drums, and the pressure doesn't let up until the very end. Similar to debuts from METZ and Iceage, Sodium is riveting in the ways it sculpts noise and feedback into something utterly compelling.
For Kimbrough, chaos is everything. She has acknowledged the influence her struggles with mental health issues have had on her work, and how dealing with chaos and meltdowns have resulted in greater creativity. This constant struggle between stability and chaos permeates Sodium, and there's great beauty to be found in Kimbrough's experience.
