The Split Coils (minus Nick Lloyd) outside Cafe Nine.
On “Earth and Dust,” the title track from the first EP from the New Haven-based Split Coils, two guitars strum out the opening rhythm, and the bass and drums fall in easy behind them. All together the band makes a wide, expansive sound, fueled by the electric guitar’s tremolo grit.
Then the singer arrives on a pillow of reverb. “We are lost and a long way from found / I’m calling you out, I’m calling you out,” he sings, bending the phrase upward on the word lost and then riding the wave of the rhythm up and down to land on out. It’s a song from a new band. But it’s definitely not the songwriter’s first song.
The Split Coils — J. Russell on vocals and guitar, Katelyn Russell on percussion and vocals. Joseph Ballaro on bass, Jon Scerbo on drums, and Nick Lloyd on keys — crackle with the energy of veteran musicians tucking into new material. J. Russell first appeared on the scene in the emo band Hot Rod Circuit in the late ‘90s, and later fronted Diamond J. and the Rough. Ballaro also played in Hot Rod Circuit (and now co-owns Fussy Coffee on Winchester Avenue). Lloyd runs Firehouse 12 on Crown Street. Everyone in the band, in short, knows what they’re doing, and it shows.
“Energy” drives a propulsive beat under a surprisingly knotty harmonic structure on the verses that opens onto an anthemic chorus that in turn gives way to a nice, raucous guitar solo. “Old Ghosts,” a smirking screw-this-place-we’re-outta-here kind of song, has a wide, satisfying strut that allows the Russells to literally shout it out in arcing harmonies. “Wandering Wild” is the song that you imagine people stepping into a bar and immediately moving their hips to. The album closes with “Technology,” a fuzzed-out country waltz that lingers somewhere between defiance and despair.
But as the band itself says, however, in the end “it’s all about the songs” — and the way the Russells’ voices intertwine to sing them. The instruments around them create a heavy atmosphere, a windy plain of music. The Russells stand in the middle of it, singing their hearts out, enough to fill that wide open space.
Or the inside of a New Haven club, which is precisely what the band has been doing. The Split Coils appeared around town a few times in 2017 and 2018 and are already lining up gigs for the coming year, including at at Cafe Nine in May. Check the band’s Facebook page for more information; in the meantime, you can just put on Earth and Dust and drive west, into the nearest sunset.
Thanks for sharing this big, beautiful record! So nice to hear these folks creating music together. A wonderful expression of the community that is New Haven, CT. I hope you will send it out far and wide! I suspect All Songs Considered would love it. Play on!