Mud Whale – Nutrient Burn (2021)
Overindulging in anything is never really a good thing, but many people don’t realise that this can turn almost anything toxic. Mud Whales have taken the horticultural knowledge of overfeeding plants being fatal and turned it into an aggressive yet melancholic single in ‘Nutrient Burn’. As an analogy, it is rather unique but that does not detract from the effectiveness of the message that it brings.
As the band’s debut single, it is really setting the tone of what is to come and offers an insight into their musical vision. Born from the fires of Craigslist, the band started writing music together in 2019 and combined a range of sub-genres to form their sound. After hitting the studio in the last year, they are ready to unleash their musical vision on the world.
‘Nutrient Burn’ uses a dark and slightly melancholic guitar line to draw you into the melody. The beat that comes in gets your foot tapping to them while your head moves to the rhythm. The melancholic tones continue throughout the melody as you ride the gentle wave of the guitars. There is an interesting movement to the melody that moves from flowing melodics to the melancholic beats of the opening. As the song progresses, the melody picks up and starts to become a little more aggressive. However, there is never an all-out aggression to the music as this comes through as a simmering anger instead.
While the melody has a tapping tone at times, the vocals are all smooth melodics. There is a great indie-rock tone to the vocals as they work through the analogy of the lyrics. The lyrics carry a great sense of abstraction to them as you are drawn into the life of the plant that is being overfed. While this is an interesting point of view, there is something really relatable about it. Through the overfeeding of the plant, you are led to an understanding of what could be pulling you down and leaving you feeling burnt out.
Mud Whale uses the interesting analogy of overfeeding a plant to look at something much deeper in the melancholic and slightly aggressive tones of ‘Nutrient Burn’. The melancholy of the single comes through in both the melody and vocals while the lyrics reflect on the suffocation a plant feels when being overfed. This suffocation can easily be translated by listeners into their own life.
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