New York-based ambient country music coiners SUSS released their self-titled fourth record back in 2022, not long after the sudden death of founding member Gary Leib. A collection of four EPs put out as a double album, it was a deep and shimmering journey across America that felt as cathartic as it did cinematic.
Birds & Beasts is a far tighter set, spanning seven songs and just over forty minutes in length. The band’s focus here seems to be to populate their broad landscapes with a more solid cast of sonic characters than we have seen in the past, a move that allows the music to ebb and flow between sweeping optimism and an underlying sense of unease, a detail that rings true when you read the succinct release notes.
This unease is immediately present on songs like Beasts, where a rumbling electronic drone hovers above warm keyboard (Pat Irwin) and swirling double-tracked pedal steel (Jonathan Gregg). The effect is like a nature scene being interrupted by a helicopter flying overhead (albeit far more pleasing to listen to), a move that intentionally attempts to unsettle the structure of the piece and bring in that subtle yet creeping sense of anxiety. As the ten-minute track slowly and patiently develops (this is a key strength of the album as a whole), the drone seems to lose its power and fade further into the background, bringing a feeling of optimism to the song that the instruments accentuate.
Elsewhere, Restless immediately brings to mind Australian banjoist Andrew Tuttle (with whom the band collaborated on the extended song Rising last year) and his Fleeting Adventure LP in particular. A nippy dobro line from Bob Holmes coincides with slow keyboard notes and a sparer guitar part that hangs nearer the speaker, along with some clean, sweeping pedal steel. The steel strings give this tune a sharp focus, but there is the faintest low drone lurking that adds a different emotion to this piece, giving it further depth.
Songs like Flight use sparse bass notes to cover the low range, which allows more space into that register, lessening the sense of tension the drone brings in and giving the music a positive mood that the high pedal steel notes and wah-wah affected electric guitar amplify.
The album ends with Migration, an older piece the band felt fitted well into this set and the only piece to feature Gary Leib. The song is the longest of the bunch at over ten minutes and begins with a quickly picked dobro line that is joined by a low drone, pedal steel guitar and some gorgeous harmonica. The brisk pacing of this one neatly evokes the perilous urgency of birds migrating, while the harmonica and pedal steel brings in the serenity of flight. The tempo of the dobro skeleton remains steady throughout, but lower pedal steel notes blended with faint spoken word recordings and that wonderfully expressive harmonica all combine to result in the most immersive tune of the bunch and a wonderful way to end the set. The elegiac character of the music, alongside an almost euphoric feel in places, means Migration contains multitudes and is a song that encapsulates the moods and characters present in the six previous pieces. This fresh, confident album marks a new beginning for SUSS while acknowledging their lost comrade. Beautifully considered, intricate and finely nuanced, Birds & Beasts is a great piece of work.
Birds & Beasts, out June 28 via Northern Spy.
Pre-Order via Bandcamp: https://suss.bandcamp.com/album/birds-beasts