Spun: Bend Sinister

By Jordyn Marcellus

If indie rock were a bar, Bend Sinister’s latest self-titled EP would be the tattooed dude in a cut-off jean jacket who grabs you by the balls, breaks a beer bottle over your head and throws you through a window for looking at him.

Album opener “Yours Truly” starts the assault with a crashing riff that would make a metal band blush in jealousy and singer Daniel Moxon’s voice raw with intensity, sharp and staccato. Bend Sinister continue the offensive with “TV War,” a song that sounds like Queen on heroin with a cocaine suppository. But it’s not all riffs slamming into the side of the head: Bend Sinister have a tender side and stop the attack enough for you to mend your wounds with “Time Breaks Down.” Deliciously poppy, this is the most unique song on the album by virtue of being performed in a completely different style-completely abandoning themselves to their Queen influences, “Time Breaks Down” could be mistaken for the latest Queen single.

The last two tracks on the album “High Horses” and “Julianna” are the coalescence of Bend Sinister’s influences to one perfect conclusion. “High Horses” mixes jazz with metal, providing a sublime experience from such an odd fusion, with a jazz break in the middle of the song followed up by a face-melting solo. “Julianna” closes out the album, a song that could’ve put Freddie Mercury to shame in its pop glory.

Bend Sinister’s album, while mixing a plethora of differing influences, manages to be a take-no-prisoner tour de force, with many different and disparate sounds coalesced into one strong, 20-minute album that has a little bit for everyone.