Cheree – Queen City Sounds and Art

“Murmur” begins with what sounds like a loop of broken, distorted guitar before Cheree bursts into layered, near chaotic aggression. The programmed drums sound like a particularly disciplined hardcore or death metal drummer because the rhythms aren’t just steady and urgent but seem to sync in when the band goes off the map with rapid echoing guitar and unhinged vocals. It’s like the wildest and most cathartic industrial music fused with noise rock’s disregard for standard melodic structure and the righteous fury of both a grindcore and anarcho punk band. Listen to “Murmur” on Spotify where you can listen to the rest of the band’s 2023 album Factory which is fueled with a similar fervor, intensity and beautifully thorny aesthetic. Catch up with Oakland’s Cheree at the links below.

Cheree on TikTok

Cheree on Instagram

The chirp of birds and “I wish I could escape from this gilded cage” at the beginning of “Churn Down” by Oakland-based Cheree is the calm before the sharp bursts of sound and pounding, metallic rhythms and desperate and righteous vocals. Also processed white noise like leaking from a steam tunnel. Altogether it’s the kind of sustained outburst of catharsis that is what’s been appealing about artists like HIDE, Moon Pussy and HIRS: Uncompromising and willing to follow a path of using sound to express a certain break with mainstream normalcy and questionable social values that are entirely too common and accepted. This song and the rest of the new Cheree album Factory (which released on March 24, 2023 on digital, cassette and vinyl via Cherub Dream Records) is a rejection of and resistance to manufactured consent. Industrial noise rock for discerning ears. Listen to “Churn Down” on Spotify and follow Cheree at the links below.