Album Review: Reighnbeau - Blood

Last year, when I wrote up Reighnbeau’s Hands, I mentioned the description that someone provided to me which accurately portrays the project—the successful hybrid of trap and shoegaze. It sounds like it doesn’t make any sense, or that it would be an unlistenable disaster, but if you are familiar at all with the Reighnbeau canon, it fits.

Primarily the project of Bryce Hample, the most recent Reighbeau effort, Blood, is a stark departure from the murky atmospherics of Hands; however, it still lives up to this “trap meets shoegaze” explanation—though this time out, leaning very heavily into the trap territory. Hample leaves the effects pedals and guitars behind on Blood, opting instead to create a slinky, slithery, practically R&B effort based around heavy, dreamy synths, skittering beats, an array of samples, and manipulated vocals.

It’s basically the musical equivalent of someone wearing a My Bloody Valentine t-shirt while watching re-runs of “MTV Jams.” (and in case you didn't realize...that means it's awesome.)

In an interview with Decanter prior to the album’s release, Hample cited growing tired of playing guitar, and a newfound interest in using samplers, and listening to Anthony Hamilton records as part of the “new” sound on Hands.

However, Hample has always bent genres—there was his one-off single on a Family Time records 7” that I described as “80’s sounding drum machines, and incredibly dense layers of synthesizers, along with shimmery guitar work—it all comes together to create something that is both nostalgic for the reflection of neon lights off the hood of a Delorean”; and then there was also skeletal acoustic release, Friends, which stripped away all of the reverb and ominous unnerve that I had become used to on a Reighbeau release.

Despite Blood being another 180 in sound for Hample, some of the hallmarks of a Reighnbeau release remain intact—right out of the gate on the opening track, “Milk of Amnesia,” a palpable tension is crafted, primarily thanks to the pitch shifted vocal samples—similarly evocative to Hample’s own spidery thin whispered delivery.

Then, on “Equinox,” Hample and company channel some How to Dress Well vibes, crafting an infectious, practically seductive sounding R&B jam that creeps along.

One of the interesting things about Blood is that Halmple revives and reconstructs older material—specifically the title track, pulled from the Friends release, and then “Spliters,” which was possibly his most shoegazey song. Here, they are practically unrecognizable in this heavily processed and manipulated form—only their shared song titles giving them away. It’s a neat trick that he pulls, going back into the archives and completely working something to make it relevant to the aesthetic of this incarnation of Reighnbeau.

“Fun” is never a word I’d associate with Reighnbeau—and I stop short of using that to describe the listening experience that Blood provides; mostly because Hample still unsettles, tapping into some witch house-esq ambiances as the album progresses. However, it is a refreshing, albeit dense, listen. Rather than the layers of reverb and guitar strumming echoing off into the distance you’d expect from Reighnbeau, Blood is the kind of headphone listen where you try to dissect the various samples and vocal maneuvering in each track. In a musical landscape where the theoretical genre “PBR&B” is used to describe certain acts that may be similar, Blood is a forward thinking, artistically leaning pop music accomplishment.

Blood is available now as a digital download.