Welcome to the BSH Saturday Music Club! Each Saturday (or Sunday) we will be featuring one album that a Broad Street Hockey writer has chosen and given the rest of the staff to listen to and write their thoughts. This week, Ryan Quigley has chosen the album Dark Fire Heresy from Draag.
One of the perks of my job is that I get to drown out the chaos of the office from behind my Airpods while I work. Needless to say, I take full advantage of it. I listen to tons of music and podcasts at work, and KEXP’s Sound & Vision podcast has recently become a personal favorite to listen to while I crunch numbers on the computer all day. And thanks to Sound & Vision, I’m now hooked on one of the best albums I’ve heard all year.
Back in May, KEXP published an episode of Sound & Vision (which you can listen to here) that featured an interview with a band I’d never heard of before — a Los Angeles-based act called Draag. Draag had just released a new album called Dark Fire Heresy in April, and band members Jessica Huang (vocals and keyboards) and Adrian Acosta (guitar and vocals) were very open about the inspiration behind their latest release.
Huang’s story was particularly captivating. Without fully realizing it until adulthood, Huang grew up in a religious cult (!) that she described as a “very specific, non-denominational Christian group” on Sound & Vision. After gradually breaking away from the cult-like environment, her shocking realization served as key inspiration for her band’s latest record.
It doesn’t take long for that theme to begin sprouting up on the record. Dark Fire Heresy, largely comprised of atmospheric sounds tinged with accents of shoegaze and synth-pop, kicks off with the spacey opener “Learning to Live With It,” followed up by the ethereal “Mitsuwa,” which is heavily inspired by Huang’s religious trauma.
The mood quickly shifts on the record’s third track. “Demonbird” is a frantic dash that further illustrates Huang’s complicated religious background. The track’s hard rock and shoegaze elements create something of a demented, hyperactive My Bloody Valentine/Queens of the Stone Age lovechild — a unique blend of contrasting sounds unlike anything you’ve heard before.
While the concept of Dark Fire Heresy is heavily based on Huang’s religious past, Acosta’s struggles with substance abuse also shape much of the record’s thematic depth. This is particularly evident on the album’s fifth track, “Good Era Doom.”
Another synth-heavy track, “Good Era Doom” confronts Acosta’s history with alcoholism and his drunken nights spent in his car alone under the streetlights of Los Angeles. Despite the song’s heartbreaking lyrics, the tone of the song serves as one of the shining moments on the record.
Draag is still very much building momentum as a band, even though they’ve been making music together for close to a decade. But as strong as some of their earlier work is, there’s nothing in recent memory that’s attached itself to me like a leech quite like Dark Fire Heresy has. It’s arguably the best album I’ve heard all year, and it’s one I’ll be revisiting often for a long time.
Album highlights: “Demonbird,” “Good Era Doom,” “Agastopia,” “In the Space of Time”
– Ryan Quigley
Joe D.: I’d never heard of Draag, but I’ve been really digging Dark Fire Heresy and would love them to come do a show in Philly. Draag wears their influences openly and proudly, namely shoegaze greats My Bloody Valentine and Slowdive — half the tracks on the album wouldn’t sound out of place on any of their albums. Still, Draag manages to take all manner of influences and make a sound mostly their own, with a keen ear for melodies and luxurious sonic textures.
Listening to opener “Learning to Live With It” gave me vibes of post-rock greats Explosions in the Sky, specifically the opening arpeggios of their own album opener “Greet Death.” The riff at the end of “Demonbird” brought me back to the early 2010s and hearing The Joy Formidable’s “Austere” for the first time, or Yeah Yeah Yeahs’ “Date with the Night” in high school. There’s the synth washes reminiscent of M83, and some nods to Tame Impala’s grooves on tracks like “Midnight Paradise” as well. But I hear a lot of another Los Angeles band I loved growing up: Silversun Pickups, who were often unfairly dogged on for being too derivative. I can see the same accusations being leveled at Draag, but I feel like they bring enough innovation to the table to avoid that.
Dark Fire Heresy’s a perfect late summer album, muddling through the heat and humidity (heck, “fire” is in the title). I’ve been listening to it on my walks to and from work, and it lends itself well to that feeling of trudging through the city when it’s nearly 100 degrees and you can’t tell if the haze is woodfire smoke or your own deliriousness. It’s a strong debut with a lot of ideas, and I look forward to how they further refine their sound. Here’s hoping they tour behind the album soon, because this would be great live.
Thomas: When Quigs mentioned that this is a shoegaze-y, synth-y album, I was pretty damn intrigued. But it is certainly not what I really expected. I’ve never listened to Draag before, so the opening track “Learning to Live With It” sort of met my expectations. The sludge-like distortion moving underneath drawn-out vocals is very shoegaze, but then the album just kept on taking sharp turns stylistically.
“Demonbird” is the third track of the album and feels like something Muse would write (to me) if they added more guitar pedals. A fast and bouncy track that feels like some garage-turned-arena rock. And the very next track, “Midnight Paradise,” is the danciest thing I’ve ever heard from a band that would open an album like Draag has.
Draag is certainly not a band that you passively listen to, and Dark Fire Heresy, with all its twists and turns, creates a really interesting little sonic adventure. I had a good time listening to this album and it could definitely be something that you listen to on your drive down to the beach if you want something a little more cloudy.
Jacob: Dark Fire Heresy extends the streak of my co-workers introducing me to things I would’ve never heard otherwise, and me enjoying it thoroughly. The first moment that really jumped out to me was on the second track “Mitsuwa,” where the spacey guitars fade in and out, forming a really comfortable and relaxed sound that lulls you in and makes you think you know what’s coming next. You don’t.
The track after, “Demonbird,” indulges in some classic grung-y style riffs that really kick the album into gear. Only to be followed by “Midnight Paradise,” which I can only describe as the sonic equivalent of what I imagine ambien feels like. With some almost MGMT-style swells in the instrumental, I think this is my favorite track on the whole album. It just sounds so polished and ethereal, especially in the backdrop of the rest of the album up to that point.
This is one of those albums that has some fare for every sort of listener. I liked every track, but even if you didn’t, I guarantee you’d find something here that appeals to you. Because it’s just well played, well produced, and well thought out. I love how the sequencing of the album brings everything together, and it almost acts like a tour through Draag’s skillset as they show you how they can crush whatever type of music they felt like making.
It is clear Draag doesn’t really have a particular lane or genre they try to appeal to. Everything just sounds good, and that’s more than good enough for me.
