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Music

Slayer with a slower tempo? That’s just the tip of the iceberg that is the multi-faceted Figures

Indie, pop, punk, grunge, shoegaze, alternative rock, 90s homage rock – whatever you want to call it, whatever tag may need to be placed on it they all have one thing in common that transcends all borders. It’s loud, brash and ragged, and somehow this manages to squeeze its way through our primordial ooze and into our nervous system. That’s essentially what went ricocheting around our cranium from the opening sounds of Figures‘ EP Power Of Purity blasting out of our speakers.

Figures Curse

This is not a Christian rock album aimed at pre-teens. Power of Purity from Figures will rock your God damned brains out.

Opener Curse lays a sonic statement down with a reverberated guitar ringing out over palm-muted guitars creating an instant summer vibe, helped along with lyrics like, “I want to feel the weight of the sun, I want to waste away like anyone.” There’s an urgency to the track as the guitars swell in the background and bring forth a distorted, punkish dream, almost like a reminder that this is more Venice Beach than Oahu, more Dogtown vibes than Pipeline.

Urgency is not unfamiliar to Figures, the brainchild of one Nic Belor from Melbourne that formed in early 2014, helped out in the live setting by pals Chris and Tom on drums and bass respectively. The band wasted no time releasing their ten song debut album From The Ages at the end of 2014, following it up with furious gigging for the first part of 2015. Clearly not ones to rest on their laurels, they have now hit us with Power Of Purity, and hit us they have.

Fading is a fuzzed out number that reclaims a lot of the angst you left behind when the flannel shirt was hung up. An ambling, meandering track that takes full pleasure in weaving it’s tentacles through your brain. With lines like, “Observing the moment, dividing the broken…exposed to the light of the sun,” it’s the type of song that leaves us longing for some headphones, a skateboard and an open slanted road.

With meandering comes its perfectly energetic counterpart in Seed that launches straight into an overdriven, reverb dripping affirmation to keep your eyes open to possibilities and a mind open; “Focus on bending your mind/stay awake/don’t let it inside,” urges Belor. It’s a strong song, even if the chorus line sounds awfully like, dare we say it, Nirvana. This is only for a brief second, however, before the track takes off into slightly more uncharted territory.

Figures focuses heavily on creating an overdriven wall of sound, at times both mellow and aggressive. But unlike some other contemporaries, they allow space for silences, giving spaces for constructed melody to ring through before we’re hit with a sludgy riff. Closing track Automated Existence wraps all these aspects up nicely with a calm, arpeggiated guitar resonating in our ears and sparse drums  that are heavy on the snare hit, pulling into a dark and ominous riff that made us think of what Slayer might sound like if they just slowed down a tad. The vocals finally come in at the 2:30 mark, drenched in echo to create an otherworldly feel, a closing track that might just hint at Belor’s future ambitions.