The Best Day You Could Imagine (Charcoal Burners album)

CharcoalBurners1_sm_crop — Charcoal Burners, photo courtesy the artists

Fans of Ride and Bailter Space are going to feel an immediate affinity for Charcoal Burners’ new single “Winged Bird.” The mixture of melody, channeled atmosphere and dissonance and the elastic quality of the main guitar riff give the song a similarly fuzzy and fluid dynamic that allows the vocals to comfortably float within a fiery cloud of guitar harmonics. In that way the band’s songwriting bears some comparison to Hüsker Dü balancing raw intensity and cutting noise with gorgeous melodies. Hailing from Dunedin, New Zealand, Charcoal Burners also bring to its songwriting that certain something that makes almost all music from New Zealand a little different than a similar form of music would take in say the United States or the UK. And also from other noteworthy music scenes in New Zealand like Christchurch, Wellington and Auckland. Though while it may be difficult to pin down how Charcoal Burners reflect what some might call the “Dunedin sound” (who wants to be pigeonholed in such ways, really?) except for maybe in some of the jangle-y guitar dynamics and the penchant for expert descending chord lines, Charcoal Burners do not eschew the tasty solo and that’s what makes this track and the band’s new album The Best Day You Could Imagine stand out. Listen to the single on YouTube and follow Charcoal Burners at the links below.