By Deuce

There’s a pretty basic formula at play on Leave Before Dark, Raudiver’s LP that initially began making its rounds near the end of the summer. The duo finds the most corpulent drums it can get, hooks up a winning drum pattern, then proceeds to drown it out in keyboards, synths, and a smattering of vocals.

To their credit, oftentimes this game plan works. Many times, it does so to spectacular effect. “Leave”, one of the singles (for which there’s a music video) on the album, may well prove the summit of these tendencies. The snare has huge, almost 80ish reverb on it. The drum pattern is basic but effectual, the type of thing almost anyone can put their head into, and certainly the still point of what otherwise is a dizzying track.

That’s because the keys on here are so tripped out, they make the notion of psychedelic sound tame. They’re loud—much more so than the vocals—, dominating, and intergalactic, as it were, that one would’ve thought they’d have been removed for the first verse, or the hook. But no, they power through the majority of the track, taking listeners to the cosmos and back, on a trip in which they “Leave” indeed.

The female vocalist on Raudiver holds her own on this number and the rest of the album, too. She’s endowed with an expressive soprano that, even if you can’t make out the words, which is the case on the foregoing track and “Mary Tombs”, you can still feel what she’s trying to convey. “Tombs” is blessed with another obese drum pattern, this time with a snare that flamed (not as in flames, but as in flam) and kicks that damn near sound as though they were, too. The synths this time sound more like an organ, which is tightly paired with bass underneath.

Nonetheless the color, the vivacity, and the emotion is attributable to the singer, Lauren Villareal Eddy, who comprises the group with her husband, Charles Eddy. Her singing produces a stirring, whirring sensation, particularly with her phrasing and inflection. The mix finally matches her mettle on “Find a Heaven”, in which the lyrics and her voice are equally discernible. This time out, the bass seems to be as big as the drums (and the snare in particular) are. The singer opts for an 80’s type melody, and the listener is in good hands all the way through.