No Kind of Rider

Dark Ice

Indie Rock

No Kind of Rider
2018

Music

premiere: portland indie rockers no kind of rider explore universes of tension in “dark ice”

April 20, 2018
110 Picks

It’s all about tension and texture for Portland-based indie rock band No Kind of Rider!
Their new single blends ethereal vocals and atmospheric guitars over a cutting beat, enveloping Sam Alexander’s voice in a haunting fog.
“Dark Ice” is from the band’s debut full length Savage Coast out June 2018.
Alexander describes the track, saying:

“There’s a natural tension that occurs in some relationships.  Especially where there is potential for greatness.  Breakthroughs only come during moments of struggle.  Dark Ice digs into that tension.  Sex and love and power get confused in those moments. Sometimes you know something is so right that it hurts.  You have to plead your case, you’re willing to throw yourself on the ground for it. This track has our roots woven into it.  There’s Tulsa in those guitars. There’s gospel in the bassline. The full stops and unison lines come from our soul.
This track shouldn’t exist. I mean, we put so many influences together that I’m surprised it makes sense at all. It takes so many left turns but I think that the internal tension helps support the concept of the song. We wrote this pretty early in the process of this record and it set the stage for the sound of album. A part of the energy is there because we forced ourselves to write it faster than usual. We never really took our time agreeing on how the song should sound so there’s still a lot of fight in the track.”

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