EP Review: Bled Dry

From Dunedin, New Zealand comes Saurian, a four-piece hard rock band with a new EP called Bled Dry which came out Friday the 13th of September. The 5 song EP includes the band’s latest 3 singles, Devil Among Men, Down at the Crown, and Park Bench.

The band took more time crafting this batch of songs than in the previous EP, Octopedal Rock Unit.
A few of the tracks began their inception even before that piece was released. The material on this EP was brought to life by Steve Harrop and Tom Havard at Sublime Studios in Kurow.
The artwork is a heavily edited image of guitarist, Cameron Ellis’ guitar that has been splattered in his blood at many of Saurian’s shows, with the title ‘Bled Dry’ referring not only to this imagery but also some of the darker lyrical themes throughout the EP.

The lead track, Down at the Crown, is an instant pub anthem.
Like if The Mutton Bird’s Dominion Road contained a more anarchic take on Th’ Dude’s Bliss.
They sing about spilling out onto the street and getting tackled by the cops. They may have mentioned rioting all week and said that if you want to shut them up you’re going to have to set the whole pub on fire.
I want to hear this song played at The Crown; I bet it absolutely rips at ground zero.

The musical attitude reminds me of Guns n Roses’ My Michelle and the singer Karl Brinsdon lets loose a great final yowling note at the end. Dunedin has that reputation for getting rowdy and this song captures it like mythological legend, right down to the Sound effects of bottle smashing and a burp.

Devil Among Men is a stomper. It’s got a great beat and some scintillating lead guitar work. The solo has texture, tone and some tasty noise flying off the notes. The track ends on a fun little candid moment right after the band finish a favourable take. “That felt good. yeah? Felt better I think.”

Itch contains my favourite solo of the EP. It’s spacious and sombre and adds emotional context to the gruff plodding of the rest of the track. The band took a slightly more complex approach to some of the songs on Bled Dry by exploring what was possible with extra instrumentation and a couple of slower, softer tunes (at least compared to previous releases).

By the middle of Park Bench, I’ve really settled into Saurian‘s sound. The gentle sway of the vocal effects in the section about the homeless guy thinking “why won’t anyone help me/ it’s like I’m lost way out at sea” do something to me that makes me really lock in with the song.
That part specifically feels timeless and perfectly delivered from inspiration to production. The whole second half of Park Bench feels classic, complete, and like its own piece of musical history. In that way that some songs feel like a version of something, or like they’ve been crafted and poured over in every aspect.

Some songs feel definitive, like they existed forever in limbo and were delivered into the world whole.

The last track brings the heftiness back up but brings in a darker edge and a slew of tasty, creepy intervals with Dead and Cold. Brinsdon’s vocals are reminiscent of Head Like a Hole here and there’s something so off and unnerving about naming a specific person in the reverse reverbed lyric, “Lucifer makes a better deal down at the crossroads with Robert.”

The guitar sounds like a birdcage in the verses, and the bass provides a spine-chilling tone. That fleshy pluck leads a build-up full of groggy, slowly advancing, corpse-like march music that falls over its own feet into a heap of mud and finishes the Bled Dry EP.

In the expanding catalogue of Saurian music, Bled Dry marks a stage of growth. While holding onto the energy and bombast of earlier work, they’ve absorbed new approaches, perspectives and dynamics that have moulded them into a more rounded and fully formed delivery system of moving rock music. Look forward to what advancements Saurian have in their live sound too, as they launch their first North island tour leg in their upcoming support gigs for the EP.