With its debut single "Riot Gear," the Portland-based band Bonus Room jumps right into the heady atmosphere of 2020's Black Lives Matter protests, boiling a year of unrest down into a song that's as disquieting as it is striking. The song drops listeners into the middle of Portland's streets, where fear, anger, and misinformation collide every night.
Instead of stoking the scandalous warzone narrative sensationalized by the media, Bonus Room turns it on its head, using music as a tool of commentary and release. Over a sludgy, distorted underpinning, the track grinds forward a thumb in the eye of thin-blue-liners while threading unexpectedly sunny melodic tendrils. Imagine Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young's Ohio refracted through the wiry, quirky energy of David Byrne, and you'll begin to get to grips with the alchemy in play.
The song has always been about a storm and a sense of chaos, says Chris Lee, who splits primary songwriting credits with fellow Alaskan transplant Derrin Brice, of the song, explaining that it interprets the tension and confusion of 2020 when fear, anger, and misinformation were boiling over. And that kind of duality, hard-edged rhythms crashing into playful textures, is something that defines Bonus Room's sound. Completed by guitarist/engineer Wes Phillips, bassist Erik Brownfield, and Oregon native drummer Ben Dorothy, the band is a study in contrast. Those eclectic sounds, and their collective influences, which range from Gorillaz to Talking Heads, feed into the anything-goes spirit of their basement studio, Starlight Underground.
"Riot Gear" is testimony to resilience, humor, and creative resistance. In turning collective trauma into art, Bonus Room is signaling that Bunk's debut project won't just narrate the times we've lived through, but will force us to reconsider them.
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