Quade make sounds that are suffocated yet suffused with vitality. Nacre, the Bristol band’s debut LP, draws on the British varietals of post-punk and -rock, but also weepy goth and traditional chamber folk. It’s an album that lends itself to solitary listening — equally apt for an evening of indoor chain smoking and a weird walk through the English countryside.
Barney Matthews has a malleable voice that modulates between ghastly moans and sedated crooning, like an apparition that’s too depressed to fully commit to the haunt. Tom Connoly’s creaking violin and Matt Griffiths’ staticky tape machines are similarly phantasmal, conspiring to cloud Quade’s otherwise crystalline instrumentals: Leo Fini’s precise, jazz-leaning drums; Matthews’ quietly dominating bass lines; and Connoly’s skronky guitar.
Nacre’s opener, “The Balance,” is a slow-stirring beast that rises from a centuries-long sleep to terrifying heights. “Of the Source” grows from its intro’s inchoate bowing into a ritualistic, wordless dance. The project’s refreshingly brief centerpiece, “Circles,” on the other hand, is full of words, splicing samples of the late, legendary DJ Andrew Weatherall discussing his young adulthood between Matthews’ semi-intelligible phrases. From there, the album settles into a more reflective mode that carries through its tender, melancholic closer, “Technicolour.” — Raphael Helfand