Album Review: Santah - White Noise Bed

The title of Southern-Rock/Americana revival has been maintained by the Kings of Leon, at least over the past decade, but it's time to find a rightful successor. No Sleep Records' Santah are current favorites, an unusual signing for No Sleep Records, sandwiching the band in between, pop-punk heroes, The Wonder Years and indie experimentalists, The Felix Culpa. Santah add to the diversity of the No Sleep roster with their rusty vocals and southern charm.

“Irish Wristwatch” (a song that must be awkward to announce live) opens up their debut album, "White Noise Bed", with a distorted synthesizer accompanied by an unyielding kick drum that sets the pace of the song and the album.

"Chips of Paint" foresees the possibility for the band to be shot out of a cannon, straight into the bullseye of the limelight. The infectious chorus, layered with a screeching guitar behind Stanton McConnell's powerful vocals, really show the potential that this band has. The contrast in dynamics in the following few minutes gives the song room to breath after the amount of energy that was strained into the previous 3 minutes.

The up-tempo mood of the first batch of tracks is counteracted with the melancholy of "Merry Ann" and "When I Couldn't Move" in the middle of the album. The slower songs give keyboardist Tommy Trafton room to shine, with his Hammond organ-effect in “Merry Ann"'s intro is reminiscent of old Motown records, complemented by Otto Stuparitz's simplistic bassline, showing the versatility of the band. Lyrically, McConnell's rhythm and timing with his vocals approaches a new formula where he slurs his words, as if his voice were an instrument of its own. Chances are, you won't know all the words to this album if you were to see them live but you'd still know the rhythm.

Santah aren't looking to reinvent the wheel, but they are attempting to level the scales which separate them from their label mates. It's clear that they have a genre that they are comfortable in and are confident in championing.

4/5

'White Noise Bed' is out now on No Sleep Records.

George Gadd