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Reviews

Bent Knee — Twenty Pills without Water
(Bandcamp Take This To Heart Records, 2024, CD / LP / DL)

by Jon Davis, Published 2024-11-01

Twenty Pills without Water Cover art

Swallowing a pill without water is a generally unpleasant experience, but with Bent Knee at the controls, Twenty Pills without Water is in fact quite a pleasure. The band’s seventh studio album is the first to not be recorded by the original sextet, following the departure of Ben Levin (guitar) and Jessice Kion (bass). Remaining in place are Courtney Swain (keyboards, lead vocals), Chris Baum (violin), Vince Welch (keyboards, sound design), and Gavin Wallace-Ailsworth (drums). Guitar duties are spread out among a variety of players, including band members Welch and Baum and several guests: Tim Doherty, Elliott Klein, Asher Kurtz, and Bradford Krieger. Bass is handled by Welch and Swain, along with guests Jed Lingat and Ben Wallace-Ailsworth (brother of drummer Gavin Wallace-Ailsworth). In addition, there are extra string players: JY Lee and Zan Berry (cello), Gillian Gallagher and Nathan Cohen (viola), and Tessa Sacramore (violin). If I had to pick out one difference from earlier albums, it would be the prominence of the strings, though they do not appear on every track. Guitar is still integral to the sound, and still prone to unexpected tones and unusual parts, and the arrangements still veer from quiet to loud, sometimes abruptly and sometimes slowly and inexorably. There may be parts of songs that lean towards funk, but the BK subversiveness, not to mention their penchant for irregular rhythms and accents, always takes that away from sounding like a typical pop song. And above it all is Swain’s amazing and expressive voice, which is by turns tender, delicate, ethereal, forceful, assertive, and tortured. I think it’s safe to say that anyone who enjoyed the band’s previous albums (with Frosting as a possible outlier) will find the same magic here, and it’s an excellent place to start for those who have yet to experience this marvelous band.

Filed under: New releases, 2024 releases

Related artist(s): Bent Knee, Courtney Swain

More info
http://bentknee.bandcamp.com/album/twenty-pills-without-water

 

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