[Click play above to stream King Buffalo’s Dead Star in full. It’s out this week and available to preorder from the band. Their Spring tour is in the process of being rescheduled due to pandemic. Read their statement here.]

Dead Star is anything but. What’s billed as the fourth King Buffalo EP is actually a sneaky third full-length from the Rochester, New York, three-piece of guitarist/vocalist Sean McVay, bassist Dan Reynolds and drummer Scott Donaldson, clocking in at 35-plus minutes long and marked out by an expansive, creative and spacious flow that willfully builds on the accomplishments of the band’s past while bringing them to new places in terms of sound and arrangements.

From the outset, the sprawl in their sound that came to such satisfying fruition on 2018’s sophomore LP, Longing to Be the Mountain (review here) — which was the best record put out that year not by a band called Sleep — is pushed further, as the 16:21 opener and longest track (immediate points) “Red Star Pt. 1 & 2” embarks on an extended, from-silence-up linear build through its first part only to find itself nearly 12 minutes in as Donaldson‘s drums begin to gallop through its second part and McVay‘s vocals take on more of an urgent delivery suited to the space rocking thrust surrounding.

Underscored with reliable, underrated, secret-weapon-type low-end from Reynolds and fleshed out with undulations of synth and/or effects, it is King Buffalo on a cosmic grandstand in a way they simply never have been. Even their Jan. 2018 EP Repeater (review here), which opened with its 13-minute title-track, didn’t dare explore the regions of far-out that “Red Star Pt. 1 & 2” claims as the trio’s own, and certainly the heavy-psych-blues of 2016’s debut LP, Orion (review here), or the 2015 split with Sweden’s Lé Betre (review here) and the 2013 demo (review here) that preceded it only hinted at the barriers of sound the band would soon enough be breaking.

The latter piece of “Red Star Pt. 1 & 2” is immediate in classic space rock tradition, but still consistent with the slower psychedelic unfolding over the 11-plus minutes that it grew from, and when it crashes, it does so in righteous fashion, a slowdown-into-nod landing heavy and letting go into about a minute of cast-aloft noise and effects drift on a long fade.

If that was it, then sure, Dead Star would be an EP, but the progressive guitar piece “Echo of a Waning Star” — much shorter and just over three minutes long — picks up with a quieter melody of its own that comes to life at about halfway through. Beginning with plucked start-stop notes that stay consistent even as the full tonality and drums kick in circa 1:30 and then come back to the fore after that wave recedes, fleshed out with soft-hit toms and keys, the track is perhaps most reminiscent indeed of an echo — an atmospheric impression rather than a fully structured statement of its own, something intended to set a mood and feel not only hypnotic with that guitar line repeating.

But the complement that follows with the arrival of “Ecliptic” is cinematic in a way King Buffalo have never attempted to be, with McVay taking on the task of setting a four-minute John Carpenter or Goblin-style bed of ’70s prog synthesizer, complete with an underlying pulse of a beat. Entirely instrumental, it is a clear experiment for the band — a way for them to grasp for something new in their sound as they’ve done on EPs in the past — but with the addition of what seems to be a fluidly-mixed wave of distorted guitar (it’s hard to tell after a certain point), there’s a way forward for them in terms of future integration of these elements with their already established modus.

That is, they’re not just throwing “Ecliptic” in without giving it some context; they’re hinting at what might be things to come as their evolution continues on their next full-length, whether you want to call it their third or fourth, after this. Sampled television or radio static — which used to actually be a thing, you know — underscores the point of interaction with soundtrack media and serves as a transition into the tense guitar line that opens “Eta Carinae.” Also proggier and more exacting in its central riff than some of King Buffalo‘s past work, it is in the Reynolds‘ bass that one most finds the groove holding sway even as Donaldson‘s snare provides steady pops along the way.

A subtle line of synth signals a change to a winding transition and the band are soon enough underway on a still-precise, plotted jam, with a lead and instrumental stretch bringing about a section of chug and the return of McVay‘s vocals, soon enough opening to a stretch of tension-release guitar soloing, but ending ultimately on that chugging riff, accompanied by a touch of synth before a sudden stop.

The title-track, which presses the words together to present as “DeadStar,” is a sweetly melodic four-minute piece based around acoustic guitar that still manages to bring all the pieces of the EP into one shared space, whether it’s the cosmic psych, the spaciousness, the weight of tone — which, yes, shows up — the synth and the vocal melody. McVay‘s presence as a frontman here is undeniable and perhaps a corresponding narrative along with the stylistic development of King Buffalo as a whole, but it’s important to note that the group remains balanced, and “DeadStar” shows this as well as it moves fluidly into its second and third minute, Reynolds smoothing out what might otherwise be stark shifts and Donaldson on the bell of his ride cymbal.

That King Buffalo should not only be toying with their aesthetic in these ways, but also finding solid footing as they do so probably shouldn’t be a surprise to listeners who’ve been exposed in the past to their songwriting, but it remains impressive all the same and it speaks to the quality of their work that seven years on from their demo, with multiple domestic and international tours behind and likely ahead of them — not to mention the specter of an always-pivotal third LP (if this isn’t it) looming on the horizon — that their potential should still resonate so vividly.

I’m a fan of their work, so if you need your grain of salt, take it, but I’ll bottom line this for you as best I can: King Buffalo are a special band. They’ve yet to put out a release that did not significantly bolster their reach, and their progression is met likewise by melodic growth and a consistency of songcraft that make their output all the more a joy to hear. They make it easy to open your mind and embrace new ideas, and if Dead Star is an EP, then it seems damn unlikely 2020 will see a better one.

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