Spirit of the Beehive - YOU’LL HAVE TO LOSE SOMETHING Review

Even though ‘YOU’LL HAVE TO LOSE SOMETHING’ is the band’s fifth album, it still manages to sound fresh; it's familiar, yet stark and unheard.

Composed of Zack Schwartz, Corey Wichlin, and Rivka Ravede, SPIRIT OF THE BEEHIVE emerged from the illustrious Pennsylvania scene, growing to popularity alongside others like feeble little horse and They Are Gutting A Body Of Water. Their fifth studio album ‘YOU’LL HAVE TO LOSE SOMETHING’ marks a departure from the more shoegaze influenced sound of ‘ENTERTAINMENT, DEATH’ and instead, flings the band into the territory of glitchy mutilated pop.

SPIRIT OF THE BEEHIVE take their name from the influential 1973 film set in post-civil war Spain, released during the repressive Franco regime - which, in turn, takes its name from a poem by Maurice Maeterlinck. The band not only borrows the name, but also manage to consistently replicate a similar haunting atmosphere as is present in the film. This arty self-referentialism in combination with the striking artwork and capitilised track names merge together to create a refined and oblique atmosphere before the record has even started. 

The album begins with a glitchy tone, reminiscent of a distorted windows bootup sound. This tone is magnified, altered and fed back into itself until it’s combined with shuffling drums, lush synthesised strings and Zach Schwartz’s dulcet vocals. From the moment the record is first started, the album forms an ever shifting collage of noise to surround the listener. There’s not a wasted second as production embellishes are littered throughout the soundscape. After over 10 minutes of this constant barrage, the first single ‘LET THE VIRGIN DRIVE’ ends with 5 seconds of silence; the first time a gap in the sound is permitted. 

Throughout the album, sweet melodies are subtly perverted, beginning melodically then morphing into an altered state; like the chorus on ‘SORRY PORE INJECTOR’. Other tracks like ‘STRANGER ALIVE’ opt for an eclectic arrangement; beginning with a Yves Tumour like, soul influenced rock shuffle, the track meanders into an ambient 2 4 1 8 inspired flow before shifting again into a deftly saccharine chorus that wouldn’t feel out of place on a Strokes record. I say chorus, but song structures are so intrinsically vague that they feel like winding compositions that have unspooled haphazardly onto the studio floor. The album lends itself to a full listen as tracks become closely connected; pinpointing the start and end of songs becomes almost impossible as the record unfurls itself.

Even though ‘YOU’LL HAVE TO LOSE SOMETHING’ is the band’s fifth album, it still manages to sound fresh; it's familiar, yet stark and unheard. It pulls at the boundaries of rock music, shifting into an altered position and absorbing elements of shoegaze, electronic, noise and experimenting with their crossovers to create something new.