Bristol four-piece PEACH, who describe themselves as post-punk, started making music together back before and during the pandemic, but with the addition of vocalist Ellie Godwin, recorded this debut back in February 2022. They cite influences such as Queens Of The Stone Age and PJ Harvey and they would both make suitable starting points in describing the sound they are aiming for.
With their debut record, they have tried to create a similar rawer feel, so the album was recorded mostly live to tape, using minimal overdubs to capture their obvious energy and it’s easy to see why they thought recording it as such would work, it’s an album that screams out to be heard in the live arena, especially the drums that throughout the record sound like they’re about to snap at any minute due to the constant beating they are taking.
That pummeling begins with opener ‘Dread’, and doesn’t let up over the following half hour. Ellie’s vocals, when they kick in, catch you on the back foot, such is the jarring pangs of despair contained within.
‘Care’ and the lead single ‘Already There’ follow in the same sleazy but emotive vein, and as the first three songs run straight into each other with absolutely no let-up, this acts as a constant bombardment to the ears, the shredding ending of which starts to tingle those inner ears due to pure volume.
Although they reference it themselves, this is really not post-punk, that is a genre usually used for catchy guitar tunes with just a hint of an edge. This is so much heavier, more guttural, a pure dirge-filled example of ‘desert rock’. There’s a short respite at the start of ‘Long Mover’ as the noise finally simmers down to a bare, achingly emotive vocal, but the energy soon returns, especially in the false ending.
‘Bad Touch’ seems almost commercial in its feel compared to what’s gone before, the clearer rasping vocal declaring “I didn’t want you to touch me”, showing the aching vulnerability of these songs. The sludge-groove of ‘I’m Scared’ carries on the fragility of the words to which the music feels like it acts like a protective shell around it.
It’s a record that you can feel building towards a climax, but when it arrives it still feels like you’re unprepared. The closing salvo of the five-minute long, breathless ‘Settle Down’ is just astounding. It has a soft, solemn background riff which is relentless as madness swirls around it. By the time the trumpets kick in it feels like the end of the album if not their world, but then they wrong foot us with what follows, the actual closer ‘Thousand Hands’ which is almost painful to listen to, a bare refrain of “I wish you could lift me like a thousand hands” over and over again to when it shuts down dead.
The half-hour that it lasts flies by, and leaves you with a need to know what’s going to come next, the fruits of the labour are laid bare for all to see, a forceful opening statement.