Dry Peel Crack by Beryl

Words by Mitch Lumsden

This week’s 2SER Feature Album is brought to you by Eora/Sydney duo Beryl, with their debut LP “Dry Peel Crack”.

Wide-ranging in tone and underpinned by its constant sense of poetic melancholy, art-folk duo Gabriela King and Alex Jasprizza deliver an incredible debut album. The combination of their beautiful songwriting with emotive and theatrical production shines through, a testament to the weeks spent away in studio with producer Blain Cunneen.

Beryl masterfully oscillates between their fragile and heartbreaking art-folk sound, which has heralded them wide-spread acclaim to date, and emotive indie rock. The result sees the listener pulled back and forth between the jagged and considered, a new approach to their music that the band describes as the natural progression they saw fit for these songs.

 

The album’s opener “Hands to Dirt” provides a cathartic start to the record, with dreamy guitars and shimmering piano painting the picture for the poetic storytelling of Gabriela’s lyricism. It delivers a constant sense of ascension, overcoming change and relationships as the duo stays true to their personal lyrical approach, resurfacing feelings and emotions from the past as Gabriela describes.

 

“It’s strange when you have to commit to the feeling behind a song and the feeling no longer exists…”

 

 

The following track “Dolphins” is a menacing and theatrical indie prog number with pockets of explosive drums and grungey lead guitars. The ebb and flow of the drums with Gabriela’s nostalgic vocals give way to these grand passes that hit in all the right spots. Make sure you listen all the way through this one for one of the best dolphin-based grooves out there.

 

 

With its dark gritty tones on tracks like “Bad Joke” and jaw-dropping performances with the likes of “Sinclair street”, “Dry Peel Crack” breathes life to the home-recorded demos and sketches by Gabriela and Alex and offers gorgeous soundscapes and pensive lyricism, making it a must-listen for fans of Aldous Harding and Big Thief.

You can listen to Beryl’s most recent interview on 2SER for the Local Artist Spotlight.

“Dry Peel Crack” is out now (independently) via Spotify and Bandcamp.