Clipd Beaks have been specializing in decidedly damaged post-punk since 2003, their wares a far cry from the black tie Joy Division reheating that started to fog up the landscape at about that time last decade. Instead, over the course of three tremendous releases, they've churned out bruising, noise-splashed sounds à la Liars circa Drum's Not Dead. Their interest seems to have lain more in making sonic sense of chaos, a hypnotic form they've fleshed out further on To Realize, their second full-length effort.
They accomplished that by letting go in a way. 2007's Hoarse Lords was tightly wound despite its constant rattle, and it retained some semblances of traditional song structure. It felt neither fully realized nor fully formed, and that sounded perfectly awesome. To Realize places its faith in texture, atmospherics, and shades of light and dark. Any notion of melody takes a deep back seat to feeling and groove, be it of the lockstepped Krautrock variety, tribalist pulse or gut-level clatter. Ecklein's bass figures in particular act as a focal point, a heartbeat to follow through the fray. That said, these songs have a very natural pull and feel-- every movement, be it seasick or cutting, leads back into the tracks' centers.
A loose, opening drone séance, "Strangler" sets a mood but belies its name. Over languorous drum hits, bassist Scott Ecklein and guitarist Nick Barbeln chant bleak lines about lost highways. While it can be tough to make them out at times, lyrically the two lean heavily with imagery that's overtly post-apocalyptic. (This actually could have made an excellently fucked up soundtrack to The Road or The Book of Eli.) On that path, "Blood" rumbles even harder: The arrival of Barbeln's serrated, high-arching guitar lines flipping the song from black-and-white to color.
Eye-opening moments like these are tucked away in various crevices throughout To Realize and they not only present themselves further with repeated listens, they gain strength as well. The opening blast of "Dust" hits harder with every subsequent take. The way horns are married to screams in "Atoms" sounds absolutely evil. And, exactly one second after it passes its five-minute mark, "Home" simply erupts. It's kind of a hike to get there, but that song's final stretch is certainly one of the record's most exhilarating: 90 seconds in which all of the errant moaning, groaning, and floating debris combine to draw blood as one massive torrent. Through those six-plus minutes of "Home" it becomes clear this is an experience to be taken in full. That can certainly be fatiguing and even boring for some. But the result is comfortably atonal-- a headphones listen that's difficult but ultimately more haunting.
