Cleopatrick - 'WHAAT'
Back to the drawing board or serrated riffs and verbose effect compilations, Cleopatrick have returned to form with new single ’WHAAT’
While they have perpetually been the musical equivalent of herding cats when it comes to settling down in a familiar and distinct sound, Cleopatrick have spun the wheel once again n and created a modernistic rendition of their intrinsically sharp and weighted sound of old. ‘WHAAT’ is a tightly wound and vicious instrumental, something that feels like home to the average Cleopatrick fan, grounding itself in its instrumental dichotomy of elegant, coded progression and harsh, rasping face value sounds. Before the lyrics blow the hinges off of this track it creates an air of safety, this is what we as fans know the band to be, no matter how fantastic their previous album ‘Fake Moon’, yet another mesmerising deviation from their traditional sound, this virile and animalistic nature is baked into the very DNA of the band and yet again they usurp us with a Julian Casablancas level auto tune performance, using the effect not to pitch correct like some second rate pop-rap artist but as an alteration of its own, adding layers of discordant tension and surrealism to the song that we have yet to see from them.
This track has been sought after for a while, as Cleopatrick are notorious for showing up, reinventing their own proverbial wheel and then disappearing into the aether for a while until it’s time to do it all again and clearly this new iteration has tumbled in armed to the teeth with this precocious blend of blueprinted countercultural sounds, becoming one great blend of distorted strings and scornful hyper-noise style voicing. Thankfully, this conductor of spite and angst will soon be heard from stages around the world, as Cleopatrick has announced alongside this track a US, European, UK and Canadian tour starting in March of next year to help push this new sound out to their wider audience.
It's great to see new releases emanating from this Canadian alternative heavy hitter, as no matter your preconceived notion of their sound, every time they appear it’s a surprise. This element of surprise and suspense has given way to an almost cryptid and mythical energy around the band, as they have previously been either radio silent or conquering the scene, so it's great to finally be in the latter part of that cycle once more; hopefully this new blend of corrosive and expanded sound can bring an all-new string to their already multifaceted bow.
Words by Josh Pook
