like a million years ago when i was a kid, album covers were exciting. i would go to the mall, see an album that i knew very little about, and buy it with my hard-earned kid-chores cash. and while i would walk out of the mall and make my way home, the image of that album cover was burning in my mind. it was a symbol — it represented something! it represented music that i could only imagine in that moment. i would scan the tracklist and preemptively guess which songs would be my favorites. c’mon, you know what it’s like when your imagination runs wild. i bring all this up because that’s what happened when i saw the artwork for Perennial’s new EP, Food For Hornets.
until now, Perennial’s album art has had a classic eye. The Symmetry of Autumn Leaves features a young couple (probably) doing the jitterbug. Early Sounds for Night Owls is a flash-blue bust of a Greek (or Roman, i dunno) dude. Their split with Mineva is a manipulated scan of two individuals from an earlier, undefined decade. Food For Hornets, on the other hand, is a (digitally) smashed and chopped organ (the instrument, not the guts!). it’s a striking image, on its own, but in the context of Perennial’s discography, this feels like a direct statement: Food For Hornets is about shattering the past (and looking really cool while you’re doing it).
shattering the past, as it turns out, is both literal and metaphorical. the band recorded Food For Hornets at Silver Bullet Studios with Chris Teti (of The World Is A Beautiful Place…), which is a departure from their previous albums (with Will Killingsworth at Dead Air). the EP is also their first on a new label — Redscroll Records — who recently released the Reduction Plan LP, and is preparing new albums from Space Camp and Mineva.
when i talked with Perennial a few months ago, i asked about their songwriting philosophy, a lot which is influenced by old-school motown. paraphrasing Smokey Robinson, guitarist Chad Jewett mentioned that “the greatest pop songs operate around one vivid central idea that a listener can connect with and keep exploring.” the songs on Food For Hornets are short and sweet. actually, i take that back; they are short and fiery. these songs last for a minute or so, without a moment of wasted time. and as Jewett intimated, these songs take a strong hook and explore it for a minute or two before moving on to the next song’s ideas. within that short frame, though, Perennial will take a phrase (musical or lyrical) and examine it from several different directions. take a look at their lyrics and you’ll see what i mean. on “Lauren Bacall in Blue”, for example: “I clean my claws in the blue of the moonlight / I clean my claws in the bronze of the moonlight / I clean my claws in the bliss of the moonlight / I clean my claws in the blood of the moonlight”. each phrase is slightly altered, and with it, its entire meaning. if the main theme of The Symmetry of Autumn Leaves was symmetry, the theme of Food For Hornets is discovery through re-examination.
each song is interwoven with its own palette-cleansing outro: a few seconds of abstract sounds (swelling volumes on “Food for Hornets”, a hypnotic organ riff on “Graveyard Theme”). this allows the listener (or at least me) to regain my bearings and prepare for the next track’s onslaught of larger-than-life distortion and fury. and even though this might seem like a small gesture, it’s an important one and a telling one: Perennial have you, the listener, in mind. i think ultimately that’s part of their core philosophy. the care and attention-to-detail (whether that be in their live shows or in the way they sequence their tracks) that Perennial revolves around considering the audience and their expectations. so how did Food For Hornets make me feel? it’s loud, propulsive record, aggressive in its delivery, but i felt like i was engaging in something bigger than myself. i felt like i was being treated like a friend.
here are my favorite moments on Food For Hornets:
“Food For Hornets”: check out that diving guitar riff during the “I am food for the hornets” section. again, reflecting the use of repetition-to-explore, Jewett’s guitar track only consists of four notes!
“Lauren Bacall In Blue”: i’m absolutely in love with the vocal trade-off here, as Hahn and Jewett’s voices take over for one another.
“Can You Do The Medusa?”: the call-and-response on this track is so incredibly fun. listen to this track, and then come to a live show and participate!
