RELEASE SHOWS IN DARTMOUTH & YARMOUTH NEXT WEEK // SEPTEMBER 25 & 26
FOSSIL CLIFFS, the psych-rock solo project of Yarmouth music scene stalwart Mike D’Eon, releases their brand new EP, Time Exceeds Limitations. Stream it HERE & buy it HERE.
To celebrate the record’s release, Fossil Cliffs performs two shows next week alongside labelmates Postfun. Dates are as follows:
September 25 – Dartmouth, NS @ Woodside Tavern *
September 26 – Yarmouth, NS @ Portside Pub +
* = also w. Ronny Howl
+ = presented by Ultramarine: Music & Arts Festival
Time Exceeds Limitations, the first new Fossil Cliffs collection in more than a decade, is an album that explores themes of slowing down, finding value in silence, and coming to grips with how to simply exist in nature in a time where a world on fire feels more fast-paced than ever.
The EP is a return to form for Mike D’Eon (The Establishment, Kuato, Bike Rodeo, Ronny Howl). Stitching together an ardent DIY sensibility (the album was fully performed and predominately recorded by D’Eon) and a bevy of musical influences, Time Exceeds Limitations is at once reflective and emphatic; introspective and outspoken; contemplative and boisterous.
The melodic, shoegaze sludge album opener “Self Conscious Thoughts” sets the tone for the eclectic EP, evoking a dream of a reciprocal relationship that is shirked in real life by a lingering fear of rejection.
Maneuvering at a crossroads between psychedelic garage, mathy stoner rock, and angular indie motifs, the EP’s title track reflects on the need to unlock a truer sense of being. Drawing inspiration from Kurt Vile, the lyrics explore the concept that keeping track of time and living life on the clock only serves to make that time and that life seem shorter – progress and possibility impeded by the limitations of imposed structure.
The krautrock-tinged “Sold Out, Middle Class” is perhaps the album’s most fervently democratic socialist song. Navigating a timeline in which democracy is under siege by billionaire corporate lobbyists who aim only to enrich themselves with the tax dollars, the lyrics express the dire need for a “rising star” to defeat the billionaire class and return power to the people.
Living in an age of chaos and disorder also underpins “Discordant,“ a spaced-out, shimmering track that explodes into an powerpop-esque, earworm chorus. Mixing a quasi-spoken word delivery with Neil Young-like falsettos, the lyrics offer a prompt to do the things that make you happy, with the people that make you happy, to keep your mind off a world that feels like it is perpetually falling apart.
The brooding “Back Of This Cabin” posits a double musical life. Starting as a languid, downtuned acoustic track, the song revels in the healing power of nature and the need to let go of the past in order to enter into a more clear-headed future. Once achieved – “So are my eyes opened / Sense of completion noted” – the track culminates in a pummeling stoner rock riff, signaling the arrival of a new era.
The record comes to a close with its most sprawling, psychedelic offering. The 7-minute “Illusions of Grandeur” offers a discernable cautionary tale. Using repeating musical patterns, fuzzed out riffs, and abrupt changes, the finale highlights how carefully crafted narratives in politics and media try to mask history, ensuring we are doomed to repeat the same mistakes again and again.
Time Exceeds Limitations is available Friday, September 18 via Acadian Embassy.
