Although the project dates back to 2020, PEACH have had a slow and steady gestation. They made their live debut in late 2021 and finally releasing their debut single “Bad Touch” to the world in March 2022. Channeling a wide array of influences such as Queens of the Stone Age, PJ Harvey and Eleven, their sound is a crossover between desert rock, post-punk and touches of grunge. PEACH eyed up 2023 with the intention of kicking the doors down and finally unveiling their hand; revealing two further singles, several music videos and performing more jaw-dropping live sets on the path to finally releasing their debut self-titled album.
Kicking off the album in monumental fashion is “Dread”. A methodical tom-led drum pattern sinks its hooks in fast, heavily distorted baritone guitar rears its head, a high-gain lead guitar melody cuts through. Vocals adding to the unease, the opening line of “respect costs you nothing, it doesn’t feel wrong to say that” half shouted and half wailed, manic energy permeates the performances. The band explode for a brief moment, before dipping back into the hypnotic drums, bubbling until finally bursting into a high energy desert-rock drive, dramatically stopping into a punchy rhythm and perfectly flowing into “Care”. Falling into a mid-paced, dirtier stomp, “Care” is all about its big swinging main riff. With confrontational and hypnotic doubled vocals cutting across them, giving way to a very QOTSA feeling guitar lick. They bring the riff back slower for a glorious crescendo that stops just short of completing the full phrase, sucking the air straight out of your lungs.
“Already There”, the final single in the lead up to the album, fits perfectly in step in the track list. The mid-paced nod of the main riff feels groovier than what’s come before, breaking up the pace. Adding a very memorable chorus and vocal hook, throwing in a noisy little guitar solo for good measure. “Long Mover” switches things up for a moment, beginning with low-gain guitar melody supporting Ellie’s soft sung vocal passage, slowly opening itself up as the guitar and vocals become more impassioned and the band kicks in. It becomes a lumbering grungy beast that plods forth with defiant power, swiftly gaining in intensity. There is even a false climax, lurching itself back to life for the final push that is monolithic and a little terrifying.
Fortunately, debut single “Bad Touch” is another great placement on the tracklist, a lovely little boppy breather after “Long Movers” deft audio assault. Still with powerful grooves in the back pocket between the post-punk punch of the main hook, as well as a touch of cowbell for good measure. Second single “I’m Scared” has a monster of a main hook, Ellie’s vocals pushing to the front of the grooves in bold fashion. The lurching between the ultra-intimate pre-chorus, left with just softened guitar and vocals, ultimately crashing back into the fiery groove that opens the track is captivating.
A key part of what adds to the album is the superb production from Peter Miles (Architects, Dodie, Petrol Girls, Tesseract). The band opted to take up the challenge of recording the album live to tape to capture the lightning in a bottle energy, with minimal overdubs to keep it as live as possible. Everything has a powerful, earthly warmth to it; moments like the closing seconds of “Bad Touch”, having some slight room noise and a band member breathing a sigh of relief left in the track adds to the live feeling of the recording.
It cannot be understated how powerful Ellie Godwin’s vocals sound; her powerful, erratic vibrato style kept as raw as possible with touches of distortion and delay added along with various double-tracked harmonies. The rather unique pairing of Jean-Paul Jacyshyn’s guitar work and Tim Cooke’s baritone guitar, a choice not often seen as the low-end rhythm instrument, works amazingly well. Cooke sits somewhere between rhythm guitar and bass, keeping the true low-end punch in the drums but allowing for some real dirty sub-harmonies and keeping the chord progressions driving. This allows for noisier high-gain experimentation from Jacyshyn’s guitar melodies and solo’s without fully losing the heft behind the riffs. Andy Sutor’s drumming is sublime, staying groove focussed and methodical; a consistent driving force behind the songs, aided by the raw nature of the production, sounding monolithic or subtle when required.
The true finale of the album takes the form of “Settle Down”, a climactic emotional crescendo. The song uses a repetitious chord progression for its entirety and slowly builds upon it, playing with dynamics and textures mores than adding overt complexity. Slowly adding in more instrumentation, getting louder and more manic in the performances. With piano, additional bass and trumpets following the vocal melody adding to a lavish chaotic finale that inevitably collapses under its own emotional weight leaving humming feedback fading out. “Thousand Hands” is an unnerving little outro track, using lots of synths and noise to layer the background, vocal samples are manipulated and scattered around the stereo field making the listener feel surrounded by various voices talking at the same time for a claustrophobic ending.
Having been recorded since 2022, PEACH were definitely keeping an ace hidden up their sleeves, this is one hell of a debut album. The song-writing is enrapturing, the production is welcomingly refreshing and the performances are top notch. PEACH are on to a winner here and you’d be doing yourselves a disservice by not giving them a listen, at just about half an hour long there’s no excuse to not give it a go.