Album Review: Bambara Tells Grim Tales on 'Stray'
On their fourth album, Bambara perfects their signature noise rock sound with a series of gothic vignettes.
Written by C.S. Harper
Photo courtesy of Wharf Cat Records
Content Warning: This article contains graphic language on death and violence.
On Stray, Bambara diverges from the harsh sound of their 2018 album, Shadow on Everything, through atmospheric soundscapes while preserving their cinematic lyrical approach to noise rock. If Shadow on Everything is a slasher flick, Stray is a slow-burn horror film. Bambara’s latest release is dark and macabre — the kind of album that creeps under your skin.
Instead of following a cohesive narrative like the one on Shadow on Everything, Bambara tells separate short stories with overlapping characters on Stray. Despite the disconnection between Stray’s tracks, its narratives highlight the inescapability and relentlessness of pain and death.
The album’s opening track, “Miracle,” is one of the band’s finest songs. It begins with ominous synths that pull the listener into its sinister world. Once the listener is submerged into this eerily soft atmosphere, a thick bassline, somber violins, and wailing guitars kick in to disrupt it. The interplay between the abrasive and soft elements creates a eulogic sound that contrasts with the song’s story about the titular character, a pole dancer whose parents seemingly abandoned her after being forcibly sterilized. Within these soundscapes, frontman Reid Bateh croons about this woman’s alluring demeanor, singing, “Hands reach out for her like she’ll cure disease / She bats her eyes and makes them say ‘Please.’” The imagery of her performance intensifies as the instrumentation becomes more explosive, until the initial synths replace the chaos and the song drifts away. With “Miracle,” Bambara forces the listener down a dark trail as they enter Stray’s dystopian world.
The brash “Heat Lightning” counterbalances the soundscape of “Miracle.” A nod to the Southern Gothic sound of Shadow on Everything, this track features punk drumming and twangy riffs. In this song, Reid flaunts his pen game with vivid imagery of a personified version of death driving at night, singing, “Death rides at night in a copper Pinto / Candy in the glove box where a revolver would go.”
Despite the unsettling world that Bambara creates on Stray, there are beautiful moments hidden throughout the album. “Sing Me to the Street” contains sonic motifs from “Heat Lightning,” but also introduces new sounds into the band’s catalog, namely a heavenly female choir and organ-like synths. It is the most dreamlike track on the record, as Reid recounts the experience of walking down an empty street in New York. Despite its pleasant sound, “Sing Me to the Street” presents a pessimistic narrative with lines like “Well, Claire had her baby / And tonight she drowned it in the bath, saying, ‘Death will find us all.’”
“Serafina” follows up “Sing Me to the Street” with an energetic post-punk sound. Although “Serafina” is the most sonically predictable song on the album, its lyrics take an unexpected detour from the morbid tone established in previous tracks. “Serafina” relates a relationship between two women, Sadie and Serafina, the latter of whom has a fixation on fire. Though this song does not center around death, it contradicts the inevitability of death that “Sing Me to the Street” details. It serves as a character study on the addictiveness of destruction: the titular character’s fascination with burning objects causes both her and her lover to spiral down into obsession. At the end of the track, the characters sing, “‘We’ll burn and cry, and never die.’”
Photo courtesy of Kevin W Condon
In the next two songs, the noise on the album turns from aggressive to peaceful. “Death Croons” cycles between snippets reminiscent of new age music and the band’s typical Southern Gothic rock. Its followup, “Stay Cruel,” has hypnotic synths, a metronomic beat, and a melancholic trumpet. Despite these songs’ soothing quality, they reinstate disturbing lyrical themes from earlier tracks. “Death Croons” describes an encounter between the embodied Death from “Heat Lightning” and a provocative woman. On “Stay Cruel,” Reid employs a slow drawl as he describes the sadistic fantasies with Miracle that his character dreams of: “She kicked me in the teeth for my crying / Hooked me on a leash, then she tied it tightly to a tree where the little dogs piss.” Near the end, Reid’s vocals turn into an impassioned growl as he pleads Miracle to “stay cruel” to him.
In addition to its vivid lyricism and sonic experimentation, one of Stray’s strengths lies in the character dynamics that play out in its dystopian world. Contrasting with the subordinate-superordinate relationship in “Miracle,” “Ben & Lily” presents a more loving but ultimately doomed relationship within the macabre context of Stray. The titular characters are presumably Miracle’s parents, as they are described as romantic partners that were forcibly sterilized. They later meet a tragic demise: Ben is implied to have died from a fire. The cryptic “Made for Me” also seems like an outlier in Bambara’s oeuvre. Reid’s vocals weave through its minimalistic production smoothly as he sings about a couple in a toxic relationship.
The explosive “Sweat” packs a punch like the climax of a film, as Reid delivers one of his best vocal performances yet. He tears his heart out on this track as he describes death. Whereas previous songs focused on the events that led to fictional characters’ deaths, the first verse of “Sweat” tackles the experience of dying directly. In this song, Reid sings, “Well, I saw John in a vision years after he died / I asked what it’s like to stop living / He said, ‘It’s a look in your eye’ / And he moved in slow-motion, said ‘It’s kind of like that too.’” The intricate production on “Sweat” contains nuances that make for a poignant listening experience, including the way the dissonant guitars fade away in the pre-chorus as the female choir’s vocalizations grow louder and dominate the track.
Stray ends with “Machete,” an upbeat song with fast drumming and sounds like those of gunshots. In addition to death, it combines previous lyrical motifs from the album, like dreams, drunkenness, and relationships. “Machete” fuses all of these elements to narrate the traumatic experience of losing a lover to the personified character of Death from “Heat Lightning.” It is one of the most devastating cuts from the album, as Reid’s pain-tinged vocals convey how the late love interest of his character, Cole, haunts him: “I see her everywhere.” Cole grows paranoid about Death’s plans to come back and kill him, but he develops the strength to face him, ending the album with the solemn words “Not gonna run.”
Although Bambara’s latest album occasionally gets lost in its vision, it is their most fleshed-out project to date. It tells compelling stories that showcase the band’s most polished lyrics and thoughtful production. Almost every song is distinctive and memorable, adding new elements to Bambara’s sonic palette and thematic lore. Even if Stray may be rough around the edges, it serves as proof that Bambara is starting to master their craft. The record is the result of the most creative visionaries in noise rock creating art to their fullest potential.