Album Review: Brain Holiday by Dead Gaze

For plenty of bands, going “lo-fi” isn’t a pointed aesthetic choice so much as one made one out of total financial necessity, a chance to sketch out ideas until budgets are secured for proper studio time and creative processes refined to write proper bridges in place of boilerplate feedback. A few years ago, Mississippi-based musician Cole Furlow kicked his can down shitgaze hall by releasing a steady trickle of feedback-swathed pop nuggets as Dead Gaze, which eventually led to a self-titled compilation of several 7’’ singles and cassettes released earlier this year. When a friend offered 11 days of free time at famed Mississippi studio Sweet Tea, he seized the chance to clean up his act.

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After spending a few years recording in his bedroom, making lo-fi noise pop tracks that brimmed with energy and invention, Dead Gaze's Cole Furlow got the chance of a lifetime. A friend of his offered him almost two weeks of free studio time at Sweet Tea , a multi-million dollar studio with a vintage Neve board. Furlow jumped at the chance and the result, 2013's Brain Holiday, has the huge sound and pristine feel one would expect to come out of such an experience, but also retains enough of Dead Gaze's weird pop smarts to keep it from sounding like just another expensive, run-of-the-mill rock album.

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Despite turning into a full-blown five piece since its birth in 2009, Mississippi’s Dead Gaze would never be where it is without frontman Cole Furlow. Unhappy with staying still, Furlow’s taken Dead Gaze to regular jamming and recording spots in pastoral cottages, college halls and his own home, which he calls the ‘Dude Ranch.’ ‘Brain Holiday’ is the result of those multiple excursions; its name reflecting the fuzzy memories of a groggy jam session that followed a massive piss up.As the background suggests, Dead Gaze’s debut is the sound of five guys just having fun; their party soundtracked by West Coast grunge, slacker garage, and party anthems. ‘Yuppies are Flowers,’ the album’s fiery opening track, ignites it all.

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