Blank Banker | Intervallic Travails LP

Letter of Recommendation: Blank Banker, Intervallic Travails

As the opening track from Intervallic Travails begins, the listener might be forgiven for thinking they were hearing an outtake from Polvo’s Exploded Drawing sessions: the roomy drum sounds; the interwoven guitar lines, both bendy and heavy-riffy; the complex noisiness that also rocks at an elemental level. A sharp intake of breath is audible just before the vocals kick in, a last gasp before leaping into a whirlpool.

Blank Banker has always moved easily between avant-garde post-rock complexity and more accessible grooves and melodies: they can rip through a cover of “Barstool Blues” that rocks harder than Crazy Horse and then bend your head with a weird combination of notes and rhythms that might in brief flashes remind you of shit you like, but which doesn’t sound quite like anything you’ve ever heard before.

The guitar tones on Intervallic Travails are the highlight, as usual on a Blank Banker record, with Orion Layton and Andy Rench cycling through a diverse range of carefully hewn sounds. The popping-and-crackling sustained chords that undergird “Fault” sound like guitar strings simmering in hot oil. Layton has been pushing the boundaries of guitar-driven indie/post-rock with Blank Banker since...  more