“Horse,” the lead song from Nose Bleed’s self-titled album, starts with an ambling beat, a simple guitar line, keyboards murmuring in the background. “I want to see how the other half lives because too much honey has made me sick,” the vocals intone. “I want to feel something sweet.” Then the song suddenly kicks into a higher gear, the drums and guitar gaining urgency. “The face of Our Lord,” the vocals sing. “You can’t hurt me any more.”
That rolling boulder of a song is a good introduction to what’s in store on the enigmatic New Haven-based band’s full-length album, which runs from fragile acoustic numbers to fuzzy lo-fi rockers. “Horse” is followed by “Slipping Through,” a morosely serene ballad; “treading water, I want to go under,” the singer sings, before crooning out a simple melody while a cymbal swells. A keyboard sneaks its way in to flesh out the sound and a distorted guitar creates atmosphere. It’s one of several cuts on the record that makes good use of a few simple elements.
The next cuts, “Seed” and “Grip,” are shambling rockers that find low-key singing trading verses with guitar while the rhythm builds slowly in intensity. The melody of “Gray” moves around inside shifting guitar chords that are just a little more complicated than they let on. “Sleep” uses organ tones and vocal harmonies to create something that sounds like a hymn, even when drums enter the conversation to move things along, and even when the song dissolves in a swirl of noise. “Freezer” shows the music’s darkly humorous side; “Pointed questions all night long / getting naked and singing songs / I like it ‘cause I know it’s wrong / and self-pity turns me on,” the vocals whisper, even as later lines reveal that the song is being sung from the perspective of a corpse in a morgue. “Spanning Time” gets almost majestic toward the end of its run, while the last song on the album, “Mouth,” sees the music reaching for maximum blunted scuzziness before morphing into a quieter song built on piano, keyboards, and acoustic guitars.
Who are the people in this band? Or is it just one person? Neither the project’s Bandcamp page nor its Instagram feed offer information, but they’ll have to reveal themselves soon enough when they open for Carolesdaughter out of Southern California, who is making the Space Ballroom a tour stop on July 22. It’s a good fit for this all-ages show — a nice return to form for the Hamden space as it steadily fills its calendar with acts both touring and local.
Nose Bleed’s eponymous album is available on Bandcamp. Check the Space Ballroom’s website for more information on Nose Bleed’s July 22 show.