Burning Sister Premiere “Cloven Tongues” Video From Mile High Downer Rock
Denver three-piece Burning Sister set their own stakes and name their genre with the title of their debut full-length: Mile High Downer Rock. What exactly is that blend? Well, if we go with the eight-track/46-minute long-player as a guide, it’s a form of heavy that’s no less comfortable in the obscure sample cultistry that begins opener “Leather Mistress” than in the post-Om meditative low-end vibing of “Cloven Tongues” (video premiere below), tripping out riff-based fare with synthesized flourish on “Acid Night Vision” and “S.I.B.” while seeming to offer bridges from one movement to the next in the interludes “The Messenger” and “Seraphim,” the former a slow-burning spread of organ and bass that sets up “Cloven Tongues” and the latter a more grandiose sub-two-minute stretch that marks the arrival point at the closing salvo of “S.I.B.” and the fuzz-grooving “Stars Align.” It’s dirty and doomed on “Dead Sun Blues” and “Leather Mistress,” pushing somewhere between lo-fi atmospherics and grounded groove in the wah bass of Steve Miller (also keys and vocals) and the drums of Alison Salutz while guitarist Drake Brownfield ostensibly leads the Sabbathian jam overhead.
Got all that? The easier way to say it is probably that Mile High Downer Rock — in addition to a cheeky wordplay — is whatever Burning Sister collectively decide it is. Fair enough.
“Leather Mistress” welcomes the listener to the procession with a foreboding 
“The gate is open…” and a quick splurge of horror-noise before its riff kicks in. Groove, immediate. Tone, right on. Swing is classic but not retro. Easy to vibe with for experienced heads. Not quite post-Electric Wizard but has definitely rocked that before, possibly in an imbibing situation. The keys/synth/organ do a lot of work throughout Mile High Downer Rock to build off the riffs and add mood and melody alike around Miller‘s spacey, echoing vocals, but part of the album’s effectiveness stems also from its structure. Two longer tracks, interlude, two longer tracks, interlude, two longer tracks. One assumes that a vinyl edition would break down to four songs on each side, but listening through digitally, the experience changes and the shift between the dug-in finish of “Cloven Tongues” and the hypnotic start before the more swaggering kick of “Dead Sun Blues” begins in earnest with a drawl like half-speed Nebula is crucial, and manages to work both with and without a break before it. It feels extra quiet when I hit pause.
That’s a compliment to Burning Sister, who released their self-titled debut EP late in 2020. What will ultimately encompass their style is probably still to be determined. There’s growing to be done, hammering out their underlying power-trio chemistry while the songwriting solidifies around the elements at work across the span here, but for sure they’ve got the ‘mile high’ literally and figuratively set, they’ve got the ‘downer’ to be sure, and one listen to “Cloven Tongues” demonstrates that plainly enough, and they rock. So if their purpose in their debut full-length is to lay out the foundation from which they’ll work going forward, then the ambient pieces they include, the semi-lysergic texture of their mix and the overall reach of their material — I hear the air is clear up in the Rockies if you don’t get dizzy from the altitude — and their general awareness of where they’re coming from in sound are only going to be assets in their favor, as they already are.
Enjoy the clip for “Cloven Tongues” below, followed by some comment from Salutz:
Burning Sister, “Cloven Tongues” video premiere
Alison Salutz on “Cloven Tongues”:
“2022 seems like an appropriate time to release a song about the unavoidable and impending end of everything as we know it. So it may come as a surprise that this is one of the earliest songs we penned, dating to early 2018, far before the recent apocalyptic-like realities the world has dealt us. Appropriate to the theme, the song is a long plodding march to an end that simply is. Employing ample amounts of space, “Cloven Tongues” entreats us to play it slow and somber, gaining and growing until it ultimately tapers off, leaving us wondering if it’s all really over. Fuck it, its over.”
“Cloven Tongues” is the second single from Burning Sister’s forthcoming full-length album, ‘Mile High Downer Rock.’
*Recorded and mixed by Jamie Hillyer at Module Overload.
*Mastered by Tad Doyle at Witch Ape Studio – Skyway Audio.
Burning Sister:
Steve Miller – bass, organ, vox
Drake Brownfield – guitars
Alison Salutz – drums
[…] Says the band: “Our second single, »Cloven Tongues«, is officially dropping February 5th on Bandcamp and other streaming platforms. »Cloven Tongues« is one of the earliest tracks composed by the band and is probably our heaviest. Mastered by Tad Doyle at Witch Ape Studio for maximum sonic impact. Keep your eyes peeled and ear holes open a week from today as the video will be premiering courtesy of The Obelisk…(((💀)))” […]