Bergen St – The Hallowed has always occupied the Hollow 4/5

01. The Games We Play in Hell 06:24 02. So I Can Not Lose My Way 07:56 03. Nancy Thompson Gravewatch 04:40 04. Just a Ride 07:20 05. Tonight, Houston, Texas 10:59 06. Prayer for the Crippled Ballerina 08:48

I have been a fan of Dundee based Stewart Griffin’s music for quite some time and having worked with him in two bands I was excited to hear of the launch of his new project; Bergen St.

Bergen St are a hard band to categorise as there are many wide and varied influences at work in their debut EP including the likes of Sigur Ros, Pink Floyd, Leonard Cohen and even the now disbanded Dundee based act Eye. Despite all of these different influences the band has a unique style which can be clearly heard throughout each track. For the readers out there who require a label for the band I would recommend progressive, experimental, metal.

Although only featuring six tracks this EP is over 45 minutes, surpassing some albums in length (looks at Alestorm). Despite the long track lengths the songs never become tedious or repetitive and instead draw the listener into the sometimes ambient, sometimes heavy soundscape.

The lyrical content too draws from many different sources ranging from personal experiences, provoking feminist short stories and even web comics. Possibly the most interesting ‘lyrics’ of the EP come from the eleven minute spoken word jazz odyssey ‘Tonight, Houston, Texas’ which tells of a character’s experiences and thoughts of the United States.

‘Nancy Thompson Gravewatch’ is a track that I have heard evolve over the past five years through many of Griffin’s projects and I am happy to find it reinterpreted again for Bergen St, in what I believe is now the definitive version.

For me the highlights of the EP were the haunting ‘Games We Play In Hell,’ the thought provoking ‘Tonight, Houston, Texas’ and ‘Prayer for the Crippled Ballerina’ with its soaring vocals and lyrics which can be interpreted as either black comedy or tragedy.

As this is a home produced EP the sound quality does vary between tracks but on the whole this issue does not detract from the listening experience, in fact I believe in some tracks the less than perfect sound quality was used to enhance the ambient feel of the songs. It is important to note however that the audio quality of the EP is far higher than most amateur debut releases.

Overall ‘ The Hallowed has always occupied the Hollow’ is a strong first release from a promising new band who are pushing the boundaries of the Dundee experimental scene.

Bergen St are giving the EP away for free over the internet, grab a copy here.

Genre : Experimental, ambient, progressive

Article by Ewan McNulty