Wake Up and "Dry Heave": Karat's Gold Unearths Stoner-Tinged Madness (Track + Music Video Premiere)
As the frenetic material from their last full-length demonstrates, Illinois’ Karat’s Gold operates at a quick clip, weaving between mathcore, hardcore, noise rock, and sludge with adrenaline-infused vigor. Sticking to one riff—or tempo—for too long isn’t something that their lightning-fast songs generally allow for.
This year, though, with a solid twelve months of pandemic suffering and songwriting under their belt, they’re back with a new single that nods heavily towards one of the more riff-obsessed subgenres in existence, stoner doom, with a main hook built for repetition. Focused on a higher-order hangover, the song is still quintessentially Karat’s Gold and thus holds plenty of insanity — here’s “Dry Heave,” complete with a quarantine-approved music video and eye-catching artwork:
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Vocalist/guitarist Chris Whitacre’s frantic screams are a staple element of the band’s sound, and they also happen to be the perfect tonality to capture the inescapable punishment that follows a night of bad decisions. The initial stoner groove, which could easily fill out a whole song by itself, sprouts mathy tentacles in the midsection, breaking away from the feel-it-in-your-boots backbeat and transitioning seamlessly to a transcendental fracturing that’s wholly appropriate for the narrative of anguish and rebirth. The big, doomy riff comes back with juiced-up percussion, however, and it sends off “Dry Heave” the same way it starts: in abject misery, like every hangover I’ve ever had.
From the band:
“Dry Heave” is the first song we wrote virtually. It is an ode to all of the sludge and stoner doom that you find deep in the bowels of the internet. The lyrics are from a perspective of a person that has transcended to a level above any hangover that you have ever had. This person has conquered the hangover. A medicine of sparkling water and cold fridge pizza is recommended to anyone trying to reach this level of ascendency.
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“Dry Heave” will be part of an upcoming album from the band — keep an eye on their Bandcamp and Facebook for more information. Single artwork was created by @noble_stabbings.
