Black Belt Eagle Scout, The Land, The Water, The Sky, Saddle Creek
Katherine Paul’s third album under the moniker Black Belt Eagle Scout documents her return from Portland, Oregon to her ancestral lands in the Swinomish Indian Tribal land in 2020 during the height of the COVID pandemic. Paul first learned to drum from her family’s drum group, The Skagit Family Singers, and her percussive gifts punctuate her most evocative album to date.
Album opener ‘My Blood Runs Through This Land’ is a wash of guitars and fuzzy feedback, featuring vocals layered with the guitar as the two become one. This guitar-driven scorcher calls to mind the likes of shoegaze pioneers My Bloody Valentine and Slowdive backed up by thrashing grunge underpinnings. Paul’s voice runs through the layers of guitar like the blood running through the land itself, both an artery and a lifeline. Percussion props up the forward-facing guitars, melding together as all become one into a dizzying crescendo.
The intimate, delicate echoed vocals in ‘Sedna’ paired with stripped-back guitars blend dreamy percussive swirls that sweep the listener away to heights that would make The Jesus and Mary Chain jealous. ‘Nobody’ is restrained, yet wistful featuring soaring dream pop guitars with a visceral edge. ‘Fancy Dance’ gallops along in full flush of excitement. Poignant bittersweetness is a key feature of the album found in tracks such as ‘Blue’ and ‘Salmon Stinta’. ‘Treeline’ and ‘Spaces’ are full of ghostly, otherworldly visions from the peripheral. While ‘Treeline’ reflects on past regrets, in ‘Spaces’ voices call through the night and are answered by the ancestors in a powerful, masterfully arranged incantation.
‘Understanding’ is a tender urge to find oneself when you find that you’re loving everyone but you, that starts soft, then crashes into big sound. Album closer ‘Don’t Give Up’ is a cry of hope.
Ultimately, Paul finds salvation where “the land, the water, the sky” come together in something bigger than pain – the scope of survival and homecoming the elements offer.
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Black Belt Eagle Scout | Bandcamp | Saddle Creek
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