Premiere: Loudness War – “Vibration” (Video)

Psych-rock band Loudness War out of Baton Rouge, LA are making their way to Charleston for a show at The Royal American on Thursday, February 13th with Flower Shopping and Kid Lake. The band is touring in support of their new album Mystifier Deluxe, which was released back in August. This morning we’re happy to debut the music video for “Vibration” off the new album, which was created by @sztuka_naiwna, an artist who hit them up on Instagram.

Loudness War have been around since 2014, and their early releases dove heavily into the fuzz, and are truly representative of the name “Loudness War”. Mystifier Deluxe takes the band’s roots in fuzz and cleans them up a bit, but not too much. It’s got more harmonies, more attention is paid to how it sounds, production-wise, but it’s still plenty loud and psychedelic.

“We adore fuzz, of course,” guitarist/vocalist Matthew Urquhart says, “but if you always have it on, you limit your dynamics and also limit what you can play on guitar. There’s a little bit less power chord bashing on Mystifier Deluxe; it has more moments of restraint. We wanted to push our harmonic ideas further and you need to clean up a little bit so all that can come through the muck.”

“On top of that, our live shows have started to include a good bit of improvisation, and most of that happens at a subdued volume,” Matthew continues. “It could be a confidence thing too, it sounds contradictory, but I think you can definitely hide behind being ultra loud.”

Loudness War recorded the entirety of Mystifier Deluxe on a $150 1/4″ tape recorder they got off Ebay. They did the entire thing themselves in their practice space, and when the 8 track was filled, they dumped into a computer for overdubs and mixing. Their 2017 album, The Miser, was also recorded on tape, but they did that one in a studio, and mostly live. Doing Mystifier Deluxe themselves allowed them more time to be creative and really dial it in.

Check out the music video for “Vibration” by Loudness War below, and catch them at the Royal American on Thursday, February 13th with Columbia’s Flower Shopping and Charleston’s Kid Lake. Facebook event here.