Bellingham's Careen makes small-batch indie rock, as both a matter style and bare quantity. Since their formation in 2017 they've released primarily EPs and demos with raw but coherent production and performances that resuscitate die-hard trends of '90s post-hardcore. Their latest, Careen Love Health is no different. It's loud when it's loud, and it's soft when it's soft, with lyrics that orientate towards oblique literary references and near prolix of prose that spill off the page with unruly enthusiasm. The slow trot, and waltz-out at the start and in the interim of tracks like "In the Light of" and "Longest Piss" have a lulling transitory quality to them, like they are phasing in and out of lucidity, making it all the more shocking when a looming overcast of flashing buzz-saw riffs and lambaste grooves a la Blind Idiot God overtake this field of dreams and wet your back with fury and tears. These Rodan vs Slint dialectics are really impressive and represent the central, mean, and little thumping organ that pumps oxygen to the rest of this low-key recluse. However, there is something to be said for the band when they separate and build on their strengths separately as well. Like when they ride out the gate on the back of a bitter "fuck you" riff that only builds in its cresting intensity on a song like on "Spit Choke," or when the group coasts at a simmer to a shirking moody gamble through a purport of unfocused alienation on "Unalloyed," Careen demonstrates that even when dissected and abstracted, their style proves persuasive. On the whole, Careen Love Health shows the band to be in an exemplary state of fitness, whether they are unleashing the full force of their angst like a howling lion, or quietly cultivating their thoughts in diffident, bookish contemplation.
