Inclement Weather Department makes the end of times sound great
It is with honor, which is not lost on me, that I get the opportunity to write about one of my favorite young bands in Seattle, Washington. The band is Inclement Weather Department, and the players are Trevor (vocals/guitar,kazoo), Cam (guitar/vocals/synth), Joey (bass/vocals), Brian (drums/vocals), Connor (guitar/synth) with Joey’s brother, TJ, complimenting the quintet on pedal steel for this project. The album is “Doomsday”, and it is so much fun. It is weird to think that it’s “fun” since the title of this creation sounds morbidly apocalyptic, but it works wonderfully on that level. I had the opportunity to meet these lads while I was living in the Ballard neighborhood of Seattle and from day one, I knew that this gathering of friends had something special and unique between them.
I hadn’t even heard any of their music, yet there was this eclectic buzz that surrounded them as I witnessed some of the early writing processes. Not only are they gifted, musically, but these are some of the nicest people you will ever meet. They are kind and warm, loving, and genuine, and then I heard the music, it’s glorious. Their sound transcends the personalities, and you can hear their human traits translating into melodies, harmonies, and fast-paced rhythms, not to mention well thought out and observant lyrical paintings of gathered thoughts. Before I even listened to the ensembles newest LP, I thought I would ask them a few questions. The following is gathered information from interviewing the entire band:
You guys formed in 2019. How did that happen? Where did you meet?
Technically the first iteration of IWD started back in 2012 in Connor’s bedroom when a few of us lived together in the U-District at a house a couple blocks from the infamous Trading Musician – big RIP.
From 2013-2019 the band was inactive and unsure of any future due to a number of reasons and at this point we had not yet met our soon to be brother from another mother Cam. In 2019, we finally met Cam through a mutual friend, and both Cam and Trevor were invited to the space on the same day, all by coincidence – years later, here we are.
Most of us grew up north of Seattle and have been playing and writing music together within various bands and genres since we were in middle school. Although Cam grew up in Orange County, it felt like he was with us the whole time through our teenage years of pursuing music.
The chemistry is built in, but it took us a few years to find our footing in terms of overall concepts, writing music, who plays which instruments, who writes songs, etc, but the day that Brian moved back to Seattle was when IWD finally felt complete. We had everything we needed to be a full band. Prior to locking Brian back in, we had dealt with a series of roughly 5 drummers spontaneously combusting… they may have watched too much Spinal Tap.
How did you decide on the sound of Inclement Weather Department? Was there a genre that you were leaning towards or was it more organic?
I think we all grew up being influenced by similar artists, so naturally our songwriting leans in a particular direction with lots of room for diverse iterations. There also may have been a major bond over our mutual love of King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard… Cam and Trevor write most of the songs and leave room for everyone to input their own style and flavor into the songs, so they develop and change sonically from the demo to the final mix. We’ve always loved big guitars and vocal harmonies and that seems to be our most “consistent” sound, but we love trying new things.
The band tends to create concept albums. What was the influence behind Doomsday?
Before we started writing conceptual albums, it took us four years to write and record our self-titled EP. It was painstakingly slow, and it took us a while to figure out that we could not write everything together. When we started producing concepts for our EPs and Albums, the ideas for songs started flowing a lot more naturally. We didn’t have to write about anything serious and there’s infinite topics and creative themes to explore. For Doomsday, it’s a tongue-in-cheek reflection of the current state of the world, but nothing too deep. There’s nothing political or metaphorical whatsoever. It’s a fun take on a morbid topic, and that’s all it is. Just ask Michael Stipe.
People like to only think of grunge when they think Seattle music, but what’s the scene like these days?
The scene in Seattle is growing fast, and is extremely inclusive and eclectic, yet anti-establishment, fuck the man, punk focused right now. There has been a ton of badass glam punk bands with lead vox ranging from high soprano to deep bass, layering fuzz guitars with progressive and funky drum rhythms, and Avant Garde melodies – all while decked out in loads of rad makeup and costumes. All of it is sounding heavy and unique, yet super catchy. I think it’s safe to say Artists in general are fed up with the current state of the city being constantly gentrified by big Tech Monopolies and the downfall of human rights within our current society… It pulls out a lot of anger that can be expressed through songwriting and performing – and I’ve seen some bands live recently that have scared the shit out of me in the best way possible… The audiences are also showing up and going crazy in the pit, which takes the energy to a whole other level.
Now that we understand the place that Inclement Weather Department is coming from let’s explore that new album. Right from the very being of the first track, which is indeed “Doomsday”, we hear this rapid firing of heavy bass and drums beats with an overlay of high-pitch-poppy guitar riffs that race us into a magical place that maybe we thought was a dream, but it really existed and changed us forever. There’s a pause, and then synth, and then our narrator, Trevor Sodorff, passionately vocalizes the end of times. Cam Agnew compliments the orator with gorgeous harmony and succinct broadcast about the end of days.
Sure, it’s a tune about how a meteor is about to crash into us and wipe out humanity (a metaphor for COVID possibly), but boy does it make you want to bob your head with the fantastically upbeat tones and chords created by the tightly knit group. It is so easy to say, and I’ve said it before, when I mention a band “playing together”. Obviously, they play together, they are a band, but these fellas are next level together. They vocalize in sometimes four-piece harmonies, and leapfrog off each other’s playing in order to create a higher level of resonance. The music stacks from one place to another and finishes in an elevated space that is often hard to achieve. Alone, each member is a building block and together they create a tower of big sound. The pulse and groove on drums from Brian Tourville, drives the narrative on this track and if this is just the beginning… where do we go?
I won’t be hitting on all 11 tracks that are on this album, but I easily could, because it all works so well conjointly, and I could turn this review into a 5,000-word feature piece for Rolling Stone Magazine. I want you to go listen to this album yourselves, form your own thoughts and opinions, have conversations about it with your friends. This is the community that Rock Oracle hopes to create with our platform. I am just going to give you, my highlights.
The next which is “Goodbye Sun”, graciously follows “Hello Sun” on the track listing. Not only are there four vocalists’ present, but there are also four guitar players working together and I feel I can hear them all wielding their weapons on this song. It is ominous and dystopian sounding, and I love it. A humming buzz rips through the words like a lightsaber and Connor Blackburn, Joey Petterson, Cam, and Trevor are presenting us with a landscape in which we must steer through with only the imagery that they have handed us. We toil in the words but rejoice in what we are hearing in the totality of tonality.
“Missile Attack” starts with the lines “We’re gonna die today/ The missiles are heading our way” and the symphonic unity of the instrument’s lifts into an expeditious cacophony of wonderful arrangement that once again has my feet tapping on the floor. It’s really hard to sit and listen to this album because it makes you want to constantly get up and move with purpose. This particular piece reminds me of the band They Might Be Giants, as the rhapsodic and humorous poetry is entangled in upbeat melodies and it is infectious. The closing contains an incredibly intense guitar solo that emulates the sounds that the firing of projectiles towards the earth’s core would project.
The whole album has you thinking and laughing and salivating for the next track. The bands symbolisms are matched by the ones based in reality, and it is easy to become cathartic to the status of the world and the songs become more than the sums of their parts. This album is a call for unity and understanding, not the divisiveness that we have become accustomed to. In the theme of “facing annihilation”, we should embrace and share the fear of a common threat, not fight one another.
Eventually it comes to the “End of the World”. This is the finality of the compilation. The song operates in a funk genre that is guided by Joey and his bass, with twanging electric guitars and that thumping drumbeat that shakes the soul and again makes the listener move. I hear those old school sounds on this particular piece, and I am reminded of those arrangements from the STAX Records days in Memphis with the Bar-Kays or Isaac Hayes and then there is an ambience of Ween and The Presidents of the United States sprinkled throughout that makes it whimsical and light. It is a groovy number to say the least and the perfect ending to this musical novella that tackles the subject matter of momentous catastrophe yet leaves us with some assimilation of hope and light.
The once described psychedelic pop-rock group that I met so many years ago have grown so much that it is impossible to shelve them into one category now. “Doomsday” is a showcase of their dedication to writing crafty lyrics as well as the instrumental augmentation and expansion of their catalogue. That 60’s crunchy funk vibe, 80’s slaying synthesizer sound and pop-punk influence are all recognizable on this album. I asked the band one final question about the future of the group.
I know it’s a broad question, but what is next for IWD?
We are always kicking around concept ideas for our next project. Now, we are starting to put the scaffolding together for our next record. We’re planning a side-quest for some older material from the OG iteration of IWD that never saw the light of day. Otherwise, we have started booking a lot more shows than we have in the past, which has been a lot of fun. We have quite a bit of material to create setlists from now. Do we want to play a heavy set, or a more dancey set? We can make our live shows feel super dynamic, as long as we remember how to play the songs.
Whatever the direction they follow, I know it will be nonconventional. This is a band that calls it like they see it and groove to the sound of their making. I expect remarkable things from this group because I have only seen them in that light. I hope you give their new project a listen, it is certainly worth it. You will welcome the revelation with open arms.
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