Los Angeles’ Clear Capsule mine a specific sound that straddles both the alterna-metal heaviness of bands like Failure or Billy Corgan at his most pummeling and the golden-era of Creation Records’ stable of punks crafting shoegaze epics. After releasing their debut EP Windowless Spaces, guitarist and vocalist Bryce Pulaski, bassist Leon Mosburg and drummer JJ Degen gained some exposure by playing with some of American underground music’s current torchbearers like Pile and Spirit of the Beehive. After a lengthy and relaxed recording process in various different home studios and Pulaski’s garage, the band is set to release their follow up EP Gravity Licker on Mutation Records.
While the EP finds Pulaski’s guitars swirling paint on the canvas with lush washes of distortion and delay, the EP’s first single “Surface Dweller” is a punchy, skeletal representation of their dynamics as a three-piece. In the song, Pulaski tries to deliver a dose of reality to a thick-headed and destructive person suffering from main-character syndrome. Given his efforts, he just can’t get this “Surface Dweller” to take a peek through binoculars at the wreckage they caused outside of their immediate surroundings. As the song reaches its final build, Pulaski throws his hands up in defeat. “I can’t come to terms, I give up,” he sings in total resignation, “You can count me out, this is the phone call.”
In their brand new self-directed music video for the song—premiering exclusively on Ears to Feed—the band rips through the song obscured in VHS warble and a variety of audio visual club editing techniques. Check out the video below and make sure to check out all of Clear Capsule’s releases on their Bandcamp page.