Review Summary: Wear many a flannel because it's cool up here.
'90s slackercore is cool again!
Buzhold is a young Estonian band that's nailed that feeling of a bunch of dorks that really want to head back to that end-of-history vibe guitar music had in the 90s. The sloppy (yet instrumentally tight) grungegaze that every garage band tried to emulate in those pre-internet halcyon days still sounds great and isn't carried by mere nostalgia. Rather, their debut album comes across as a thick slice of idly romantic rebel songs from a bunch of naive, passionate dreamers. The casual ease with which Buzhold peppers grooves and sly winks at mathcore into their slacker grunge songs suggests a potential that could see them rise above any average garage band on this fantastic planet (this, however, was no sly wink).
The recipe for their debut album What It Meant? is pretty straightforward: throw in three equal parts of Hum, Failure and Shiner and process them through the whirliest-sounding shoegaze guitar pedal you can find. It's not without caveats - the end product is not wholly original and there's a tension between the more alt-metal grooves and shoegaze atmosphere that's not concluded in a way that's entirely satisfying. I would imagine this is something that the band will polish the further they find their feet. If you like your post-hardcore with more of an edge, the young Estonian post-hardcore scene has the Rites Of Spring-lineage
Kalli Talonpoika. If a flirt with radio friendliness and a glance at the mainstream is something that doesn't drive you away from grunge, then Buzhold fits the bill exactly.
