F88 LINEUP: Flooding
| April 25, 2024 | Blog, Music, Reviews,
As a Kansas City native, the band name “Flooding” has long floated around my music-geek social circles, but it wasn’t until personally witnessing their opening performance for the KCOU-favorite rock outfit, Wednesday, that their band name made sense. The slowcore trio featuring guitarist and vocalist Rose Brown, bassist Cole Billings, and drummer Zach Cunningham, has a gift of crafting a vulnerable space with their music and then shattering it with terror, overflowing every corner with vibration and contemplation. Flooding’s unique sound merges ethereal and entrancing vocals and melodies with blasts of fuzz and noise. Their self-titled debut record helped catapult them into the Missouri-Kansas DIY music scene, soon expanding to legendary Kansas City music venues such as Farewell and recordBar (where they supported Wednesday) as well as frequent visits to other Midwestern cities. A track highlight on their self-titled record is “Insure Me, Procure Me” which embodies their signature soft-hard dynamic, a blankie-tucked ballad that soon erupts into a sphere of static, suffocation, and a death sentence for the weak: “I’m gonna f*cking kill you.”
Their follow-up record in 2023, Silhouette Machine, further expands their sonic atmosphere while honing in on their talent to thrill and fearmonger its listeners. Impressively only their second album to date, Silhouette Machine stands as a definitive peak for their musical progression, fusing their familiar slowcore energy with elements of sludge, hardcore, and screamo (all thanks to intense and equally blissful vocal deliveries from Brown). The opening track, “Run”, immediately sets the tone of the album, invoking the subconscious Midwestern imagery of a midnight cornfield that quickly turns into a nightmare as you are haunted by Brown’s voice, taunting, “I’m always one step ahead of you!” A personal favorite is the succeeding track, “Muzzle”, with its bone-chilling yet addictive melodies, meticulous build-ups, and horrifying climactic shrieks. The record feels like an open-armed invitation to test your frailty that will embrace you once you inevitably succumb to its fright. Since seeing Flooding perform live, Silhouette Machine and the rest of Flooding’s tight-knit discography have befriended me on many groggy nature walks and bedroom nights of solitude, but nothing compares to the physical experience of sharing their space.
KCOU is bringing their thrill to life for you.
Come with us to see Flooding, the proclaimed stewards of “cornfield music”, outside their habitat in the local comfort of The Blue Note for F88 this Thursday, 4/26.
BUY F88 TIX HERE: https://thebluenote.com/event/kcou-f88/