Ben Q Best
Apricot Exorcist
Self-Released
Street: 05.24
Ben Q Best = A Perfect Circle + Gregor Samsa – Explosions in the Sky
Though his songs are tinged with a kind of delicate earnestness, Ben Q Best excels most in his ability to craft unique melodic passages that carry the darker themes of this album. His voice warbles and wanes through layers of shoegazey post-rock and quiet piano passages. Instead of relying on the long, building crescendos typical of post-rock, Best uses dissonant phrases, minimal instrumentation and a variety of other techniques that enhance the negative space of this album. Apricot Exorcist sounds like a small, guttering campfire with the warmth and closeness of its production, but the quiet still lurks in the darkness beyond the ring of firelight. “Milk Coma” and “Dead End Horse” take this aesthetic in a more intense and distorted direction, and feature some of the most catchy vocal lines I’ve heard in a while. –Henry Glasheen