Spectreview: Enumclaw – Jimbo Demo [EP]

Released: April 30, 2021

Alternative
(Shoegaze)
(Indie Rock)
(Grunge Revival)

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It’s what most people dream of happening the moment they pick up the guitar or the sticks or the mic; Tacoma four-piece Enumclaw found themselves buzzed about on the strength of one song, recorded humbly and accompanied by a music video that solidified its overcast feel. “Fast N All” doesn’t just pack a surprising punch; it also sounds eerily like how the PNW feels – foggy, muted, weighed down by the unchanging gloom of the fall/winter months.

Jimbo Demo is as fitting an introduction to the band’s low-key grandeur as that debut single. Over its five songs (cherry-picked from a batch of twenty), Aramis Johnson and company begin to define themselves. Its guitars, borne from warm amplifiers and swathed in chorus, mix with Nathan Cornell’s similarly-doubled bass to produce something akin to shoegaze with the sandpaper edge of grunge. That mixture, along with Johnson’s classic-slacker vocals, stays consistent as the band switches up styles, from the early-period Sonic Youth jam of “Cents” to the self-loathing burner of “Cinderella” and the simple punk of “Free Drop Billy”.

Johnson makes for an engrossing frontman; though he (and the rest of the band) is relatively new to rock, his role as an MC and an organizer for Tacoma’s rap scene purportedly lends him a sense for cadence and feel that blends with his own natural ear for melody. His voice is untrained and sharp by default, but it’s consistently sharp to the point where he conveys the hooks embedded in his choruses. It’s an unspoken truth that staying on pitch is never as important as relaying the spirit of the music, and Johnson easily nails the image of the working punk rocker: bereft of ambitions, fridge full of cheap beer, committed simply to making music and hanging with friends off the clock.

Jimbo Demo thrives in that casualness. There’s a lack of self-consciousness central to Enumclaw’s version of rock that balances out its downer aspects; together, the group makes it all look easy. I’m excited to see that dynamic in action once they actually get to play a show.

Recommended for I-5 and WD-40.