Spillings is a minimalist reconfiguration undertaken by two artists whose careers have been about genre deconstruction. The paths of Mathieu Ball and Liam Andrews have been running on parallel tracks, but both have been aiming for a similar endpoint. That is to strip down the heavy, experimental rock form, while at the same time retaining its destabilizing core. With Big | Brave, Ball has been reconfiguring the drone/doom space through no wave aesthetics, while Andrews, with My Disco, has been dissolving math rock into a minimalist mesh, reaching a pinnacle with the altered industrial experiment of Environment.
With Andrews joining Big | Brave, first as a live musician, now as a full-time member, it feels like the duo have had a lot of ideas brewing. In their self-titled debut, the two continue their shared fascination with reshaping genre paradigms. And as is the case with most of their individual works, many of the components are familiar. The detached industrial sense is detectable, but its precision has been overtaken by a newfound volatility. The post-punk momentum is at work, but it has been drained of its colourful tonality and bravado.
The foundation of Spillings is set on crumbling ground. It is a heritage carried down through the industrial scene, the hidden reverse, but disfigured in such a way as to contradict its original character. "Casted Crime" introduces this vision, where the panned effect on the percussion alters the usual determination of industrial, and morphs into a force for disorientation. The mechanical clunks slowly build up a mounting pressure, which never explodes. Ball and Andrews understand the importance of motion in the industrial context, but they weaponize it differently. "40 Grit," for example, uses the feedback to create a pendulum-like swing, making the guitars the rhythmic centre, with the percussion following this predetermined push and pull motion. It is an alteration of the immediate devastation of industrial's artificial essence, opting instead for a more fatalistic perspective, an inescapable prophecy about to be fulfilled.
What Ball and Andrews focus on is presenting a mirror reflection of genres, not an abandonment of their ideas. It is a hollowing out that drives them, harnessing the genre's characteristics for a different purpose. "Violent Carrier" is in many ways the skeletal representation of what could be a post-punk anthem. But, instead of instilling into its structure the vibrant energy that defines the genre, Ball and Andrews choose to drain it instead. Here, it is not the bombastic bass lines that prevail, but the roaring feedback and intricate percussive inclusions. Here, it is not big, open vocals that dictate the proceedings but a rather soft spoken narration that details similar tales of darkness. And yet, they still bring it all together through the determined drumming, which echoes with authority in the midst of the vast soundscapes.
It is a constant duality with Spillings, in one moment they retreat to minimal guitar riffs, relying on the feedback to mould their sound, only to then return to a more solid rock form. This non-commitment is in itself a source of commitment. It reminds of the relationship between Neurosis and their side/solo projects. Where the main band cast a very large shadow, acts like Harvestman and Blood & Time would sculpt away these imposing structures, revealing the wonders hidden within. Ball and Andrews perform the same minimalist, hollowing out, reconfiguration, not targeted so much toward their main projects, but rather at genres as a whole. The industrial motion is redirected, the post-punk energy is drained, and the post-metal monumentality is distilled, and all are working together to create a work of sustained tension without the guarantee of catharsis, making Spillings such a relevant record.
