Interlay Embrace Noise and Female Rage on Snow Covers Your Insides

Snow Covers Your Insides, Interlay’s third EP instalment, via Pleasure Tapes, boldly brandishes an homage title to the poetry of Sylvia Plath (a 20th-century American poet), thematically evoked through the obsessive use of delicate and foreboding language. Whilst these tracks identify with the band’s DIY Post-Punk Noise Rock intersection, they introduce a new Chicago-based line-up, leaning into a thicker DIY accent. Despite this, Interlay continues to question the conventions of the Shoegaze music scene by slapping emotional distance in the face (this time, twice as hard), through falsetto howls, dissonant harmonies, and disorientating pulses.

Blistering female rage scorches the male-dominated territory of Shoegaze and Post-Punk!

Awakening with Silo, the EP lulls its listeners into a false sense of security, reminiscing in pure Shoegaze with delicate dynamics and static rhythms, before abruptly slamming riffing lyrics into the foreground. Silo blurs coherent contentment in a haze of reverb harmonies, layering short melodies into dense textures like falling snow. Lyrics such as crawling out of my head are complemented by prolonged notes and shaky rhythms, insinuating a struggle for psychological control.

Reaching For My Revolver opens with audio panning (alternating between left and right audio channels), which is complemented by muddy guitar pedals and reverb, in order to create a sludgy snow-globe of sound. Deep-rooted anger grows cold as faint Vocal screeches weather further into the background. In contrast to the previous track, Reaching For My Revolver includes heavy Bass parts which are exaggerated by being higher in the mix (volume digitally enhanced). Wintery white noise clouds the clarity of Vocal melodies and Bass riffs, tracing back to the band’s Noise scene background via the inclusion of Musique concrète (found sounds) being digitally manipulated.

Plastic Stars pulses with hyperkinetic Drum rhythms and rolls, following its own visceral logic, in addition to obscuring the fluidity of the track. Similar to the former, white-noise fades in and out, reminiscent of the EP’s freezing title, Snow Covers Your Insides. Harmonies are as static as plastic in contrast to the track’s malleable textures and intersecting layers—which is ironic because the lyrics provoke underwater and reflective imagery.

Finally, Fire Hose concludes the EP with guitar riffs hot enough to set a house on fire, and percussive statements that highlight the aesthetic pauses in these melodies. Gloomy Vocals descend and fade out, as they spiral through breathy and fragile shrieking techniques typical of Post-Punk. Urges to sway and swivel to the steady Bass become violent when sudden sheens of Cymbals crash down.

Overall, Snow Covers Your Insides encapsulates the emerging phase of Interlay’s new line-up, proving confidence in their following with an upcoming US tour. Whilst the band intend to hone in on their DIY background, this EP speaks to the relevance of genre overlays creating entirely new scenes.

Listen to Snow Covers Your Insides:

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