image courtesy of the artist
Bar/None Records Artist Justus Proffit has released “Burning The Ground,” a single from his upcoming sophomore album, Speedstar, coming out August 20th, along with an accompanying music video, and his low-key indie folk-rock vibes are formidable.
The track opens with lazily-strummed acoustic guitar sharing space with gently chorused lead guitar lines. A placid bass faithfully hits the root note, establishing a solid rhythmic foundation. The tom-forward drum kit begin to tumble dizzily during the chorus, giving the song an added sense of dimension and avoiding the possibility of sounding repetitive. Meanwhile, Proffit’s lead vocal mirrors the laconic lyrics in his offhand delivery, as if you were listening to him in a chair across the bed from which he’s performing. The package as a whole is as meditative as it is catchy.
As a whole, the track gives off strong Elliott Smith vibes, combined with a bit of the stoned effortlessness of Kurt Vile. The video, meanwhile, finds Proffit alternately ambling around a cemetery in daylight, relaxing in a very candle-lit bath tub, and dripping red wax over glass heads and religious statuettes. Shot with a VHS look, its amateur look evokes the visual work of alternative artists from the 80s and 90s, and subtly fills in the more gloomy blanks of the music. Hopefully the album will similarly ride the line between depression and dynamism. Gabe Hernandez