We’re certainly entering strange space when a band like Purson is beloved by metalheads of sundry stripes and sick permutations. Self-described as “Vaudeville Carny Psych,” Purson—if lines between music styles, genres, and eras mean anything—could be the missing link between Mellow Candle and Black Sabbath. Or, Fairport Convention mixed with iconoclasts Coven. However, you want to pull back time and scatter long-settled dust to compare Purson’s sometimes smokey, sometimes sultry, mostly bucolic (wait until you hear “Tempest and the Tide”) heavy folkisms what really matters is that it rules. Not kind of. The ruleage is in absolutes.
Most bands like to take stabs at once was through irony (the worst kind) or sheer appropriation (cute, but temporal), but Purson have depth of character and wide sound palette all their own. Sure, much of the band’s likeability may come from Rosalie Cunningham’s genuine voice(s). She’s hard to ignore, really. But take a deep look at the music, and her bandmates (and their influences) aren’t just off Uncle Monty’s turnip cart. They have skill, really transportive abilities that hover in the nether regions above and below the convergence points of folk, rock, hard rock, psychedelia, jazz, and pop. It’s the Canterbury sound brought frilly cuffs and wildly muted colors frolicking into the present.
So, you can image we’re pretty chuffed to be ground zero for the premiere of Purson thriller, “Spiderwood Farm,” which is naturally named after some obscure ’70s band and about something tangentally scary, as Miss Cunningham so eloquently details: “Spiderwood Farm is a protest song of sorts. Spiderwood council are trying to evict the tenants of the farmhouse. They have been dead for over a century but the ghosts are rather comfy there. The dark needs a comfortable bed, so they said. Hopefully our monster riffs can change the council’s mind.”
** Purson’s new album, The Circle And The Blue Door, is out April 30th 2013. It’s available HERE if you don’t mind sharing your time with the ghosts of Spiderwood Farm. Also, don’t forget to check out a different version of “Spiderwood Farm.” It’s, uh, fuzzy. Click HERE.
