Critical Hits: Checking in With Gnarwhal Ahead of Crucial

Here’s a pitch I’ve been drafting to send off to HBO: a Freaks and Geeks-esque series set at the magnet high school Nashville School of the Arts, with a complete cast of angsty, mop-headed music-nerd teens. The series could chronicle the trials and triumphs of all the incredible bands with roots in those squeaky, locker-lined hallways, from Be Your Own Pet and JEFF the Brotherhood to Turbo Fruits and Yautja. You’d have a hard time writing a better origin story than Gnarwhal’s, however.

The group took shape in the late Aughts when singer-guitarist Chappy Hull joined forces with drummer Tyler Coburn, guitarist Sean Thompson (later of Promised Land Sound and Skyway Man) and bassist Jesse Weilburg (also of the doomy outfit Sky Burial) to create a ferocious but catchy blend of screamo, technical metal and experimental folk. In an evolution you can trace on Bandcamp, Thompson stepped out, Evan Bundy stepped in, and the quartet released their debut album Duane in spring 2011. But just before they were set to leave for a five-week tour that May, Bundy and Weilburg left the band.

For some groups, that might have spelled the end, but Hull and Coburn weren’t ready to give up.

“It was really stressful,” Hull recalls, talking to the Scene by phone from a tour stop out West. “Tyler and I just went on [the tour] by ourselves, and then that never changed. I went to Tyler’s house like every day for a week, and we wrote some new songs and tried to [rework] some four-piece songs, and I think it was fine.”

That’s a hell of a way to cement a bond, but the experience led the duo to channel their efforts into the mesmerising math-punk powerhouse we know today.

On May 12, Hull and Coburn will release Crucial, their second LP as a duo and third overall, via Brooklyn’s Exploding In Sound Records. It’s heavier and more polished than 2015’s Shinerboy, and it showcases impressive musicianship meant to be savored thoroughly, not wolfed down as easy listening. You might not catch yourself humming along with the lyrics, which Hull describes as “textural,” but you will feel your jaw dropping at the complex timing of the drums, skillfully interwoven with the all-in-one bass-rhythm-and-lead-guitar shredding that is Gnarwhal’s signature sound.  

The album was recorded in only four days, a feat Hull is quite modest about.

“We had been so practiced at that point that Tyler knocked out all the drums in one day, so we had a good amount of time to do all of my stupid shit,” he remembers. “We both had to work during the recording process, so we were just switching out. Our friend Miller Rich came and put saw on [‘Let Going’] and synths on ‘Part Two’ while I was at work, so I got back and heard it and was like, ‘Wow!’ I just never expected it to sound so cool.”

Tracking the entire album at Coburn’s house off Music Row allowed for some unconventional recording methods by friend and engineer Seth Engel. “[Tyler’s] living room has really high ceilings, so we put mics in really weird places, like the stairway,” says Hull. “Seth put one in the basement underneath the kick drum too, so it got this weird cavernous sound which ended up sounding super sick.” 

Michael John Thomas, a friend and producer from New York, mastered the record. Ever since, the pair has been anxious to let the world hear it. That anxiety took on a new dimension when Coburn injured his hand just a few weeks before the pair left for a lengthy tour with celebrated Boston rock band Pile — thankfully, he healed in time for them to get on the road. But when the tour stopped in Nashville at Third Man Records’ Blue Room on April 16, Hull picked up an injury of his own: a bruised heel, which he now has to stand on every night. 

You might wonder if Gnarwhal having a challenging time on tour is a law of nature. But it will take a lot more than that to slow these boys down. 

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