“I thought that Puff 7-inch Burka For Everybody released early this year packed the most tightly coiled firecracker I’d be finding in my pants, but Bronze might just have one-upped that single-serve brain-blast with their scene-poppin’ In Stone LP, dropping today on vinyl via BFE. It’s a punk-ish practice in barely controlled chaos, as many of the beats and synth smears seem ready to launch out of the speakers, and yet a steady sense of restraint keeps many of the best tracks in their rightful places even if it might have made sense to most to dress them up even more (for example, “The Angle,” “Under”) in the eyes of a more populist group. Bronze wear their synths on their sleeve, and tracks like the heady “Re-enactment” feel almost like an older Aa b-side combined with a choice Silver Apples cut. It’s propulsive, giving you a reason to leave the comfort of your record-room chair, and its best trick is its inborn sense of exploration, as if the aforementioned synths are feeling around for a lightswitch in the dark, each keystroke representing another random grope. “Inane” sounds more like the guy from Leisure Birds (Moon Glyph) locking himself in a helicopter, taking off, then slamming down on dozens of landing-/synth-patch pads. Then “Famous Faces” hits and it’s GAME OVER, not because it’s the last track in a stellar chain but because it breaks several of the rules established earlier on, applying spectacular layers of goodness Bronze had previously refrained from including.
Compelling, colossal, conundrum-causing; whatever word YOU decide best describes Bronze, make sure you climb the many crags of In Stone before you make your choice.”
http://www.tinymixtapes.com/chocolate-grinder/premiere-bronze-stone
“Few bands perplex like San Fran riddler trio Bronze but ever fewer have managed to hatch and hone such an obliquely singular sound. The group’s third long-player, In Stone, twists and burns through eight new iterations of their classic oscillator-fusion psychedelia, inflected with shades of post-punk raga, skronk lurch, modal incantantion, deep space narcosis, lizard kingmanship, and home-wired industrial dementia. As an album, these recordings skew tenser, twitchier, a touch paranoiac, bloodshot tweakers stalking steep foggy streets. The alchemy of drummer Brian Hock, vocalist Rob Spector, and electronicist Miles Friction is always riveting in the live sphere but In Stone feels like more of a studio document, exploratory and expressionistic, full of ideas and psychic interplay. Bay Area burnout rendered as psychotropic sculptural waveforms. Confusion isn’t sex, it’s something stranger. Black tapes mastered by Ruud 66 with J-cards designed by the band.” Not Not Fun
“For nine years they have been slowly simmering in a pot. For nine years I have been seeing them usurp every bill they have been on. I’ve never seen a bad Bronze show…they range from smiling and hypnotized dancing crowds to a man getting violated and urinated on at a yuppie bar (everyone still smiling).
“Always the entertainers, always drunk with mad skills; with dashes of John Carpenter, Silver Apples, Liquid Liquid, Birthday Party, Harold Grosskopf, Klaus Schultze, Cluster, and Brian Ferry with a field recorder taped to his tux jacket. Ultra bottom heavy dance beats à la Brian Hock (shirt off / shirt on, it’s all good to me), super hand-wringing oscillations home brewed by Miles Friction and the ever-great Robert Spector delivering homilies from beyond the dimensional wall.”
“They bought a limousine to tour in (which may be the raddest fucking thing I’ve ever heard of), but it’s been parked in the bat cave under a car cocoon like San Francisco’s best kept secret. These guys should be on tour, eaten alive every night by ravenous fanatics—but alas, they are like a rare treat these days. So, we’ve waited outside the bivouac for the flap to lift, and after many nights and cold rations they appeared and performed the great and fabled Bronze happening for us to trap to tape. A mix of absolute old faves and new gears grinding; a great night indeed, recorded and mixed by the Castle Face crew, adorned with photos of the night. You are well set to feast on this release.”
—John Dwyer
