Homegrown stylings from Cameron Winter throughout Heavy Metal are a necessity of location. He records his debut album in what few quiet spots he could find while touring with Geese. The frontman has branched out with extra material in the same way Grian Chatten pulled away from Fontaines D.C. to deliver a remarkable solo effort. Hard it may be to make heavy metal music while swatting at the steamer plug above your head on a rickety shelf, Winter has persevered with some fine material here and none of it relates to the genre. Soft and capable acoustic-driven songs of ambition and reflection, of pushing the limit to how we perceive the elusive artists of this day and age. In a time of social media, an online presence can always ruin the magic. Not for Winter, who finds those stripped-back tones an ample bed for his adventures in songwriting.
Opener The Rolling Stones may seem like a nod to the Mick Jagger-fronted band but it could not be further from those blues rock tones. Winter holds firm with a climbing acoustic variety, a simple bass riff holding it together as he reveals, in that cold, deep drawl, the struggle of songwriting. As Tim Heidecker shared on Slipping Away, the self-reflection of a wide-open variety is dangerous territory. It feels taboo but a necessary conversation, in this instance for Winter to have with himself. He ties the pursuit of songwriting to the unusual instances slipping through his fingers, a charming vocal range to dissect little snippets of life on the road. Charmingly mellow moments on Nausicaä (Love Will Be Revealed) hinge on those background vocals repeating those emotionally charged questions. Winter’s vocal range is explored as well as can be here, from the subtle croaks preceding his lyrics to the impressive ability to shift the tempo at a moment’s notice.
Heavy Metal is more of a chance for Winter to explore untapped influences. Those left-field instrumental choices make up the best parts of Geese but expanded further. Something like Love Takes Miles has all the signs of a frontman exploring those rich layers, the cut-off of the euphoric high at the end and the push into slow-tempo heartbreaker Drinking Age is a bold move, one of many found on Heavy Metal. What Winter maintains throughout this, though, is the representation of recording while on the move. Studio static and the boxed-in feeling is removed entirely, instead, these are moments scattered across the globe. Cancer of the Skull feels for the everyday scope of work, an American Dream backdrop to it and a classic folk guitar plucking roaring through it.
Longing tones may guide the structure of Heavy Metal but it feels more like an experimental pop for Winter. To explore the instruments at hand, to figure out the new tones and form they can take in what feels like spare time, the lull before and after a stage show, is a neat listen. Pair that desire for discovery with the constant quality of Winter’s writing and Heavy Metal becomes a soft and loose reflection of worry and doubt. We all have it, but few can piece it together on paper like Winter, whose collection of folksy and instrumental collapse, particularly on We’re Thinking the Same Thing, is powerful. Heavy Metal is not just a repetition of the Dylan-like influences but an elongation of it. Another sentence in the long-running pages of artists influenced by those demanding tones, where walking through houses and experiencing the liberation of the open road in a drunken stupor, as we are thrown through on Nina + Field of Crops, is all it takes to reconnect with the world around us. Do so with Winter’s guidance.
