Clash Bowley Releases A New Album

Clash Bowley’s Grace is a restless record that moves between folk, sci-fi, and jazz but always circles back to the same human pulse. The opener “Empress” sets the tone: Bowley paints a deity who “dances, spins and whirls,” commanding dark and light and calling songbirds to her. The smooth guitar and finger snaps make this goddess feel tangible, and there’s a hint of infatuation beneath the myth. “One of Twenty Thousand” jolts you into a different orbit. Over a gritty bass line, he joins a ship with twenty thousand others, leaving behind “the good and the bad” and hooking himself to an IV for cryogenic sleep. It’s an eerie metaphor for abandoning your life for a chance at something better.

The next pair of songs bring things back down to earth. “Walk in the Rain” is a wah guitar stroll through a storm, inviting you to feel the mists on your skin and smell the world anew. The lyrics emphasise sensory detail, shadows flit, feral calls echo through the night, and the track works like a cleansing interlude. “Do Love” is the album’s rawest moment, with an insistent groove and a lyric about selling your heart in Dallas for a promised palace. He asks if her eyes have lost their hue and whether she dares to love again, and his voice almost breaks. The tension between wanting and fearing new love is palpable.

By the time “Eyes Open to the Night” arrives, Bowley slows the tempo and gives his vocals a dragged, hypnotic delivery. A midnight noise wakes him; a hand on his spine makes him twitch as his eyes open to the night. I love how the beat locks into a groove that’s both sultry and unsettled. The humour of “The Hots” follows; Bowley lists the many ways he’s “got the hots,” from “lava java steaming balaclava” to “demon in my knickers.” It’s goofy but endearing, and the elastic rhythm underscores the song’s theme of self winding desire.

“Terpsichore,” featuring Fritz Herold, feels like a Miles Davis tinged jam with tumbling drums and lines about hearts beating and lovers seizing the moment. I loved the drums here; they swing harder than on any other track. “Carnivores” uses a phaser soaked guitar to depict slavers and wolves from outer space tearing flesh and drinking blood, it sounds like a wormhole swallowing a bar band. The back third offers softer meditations: “If” imagines speeding like starlight to be close to someone, “Honeybee” praises a lover who makes flowers bloom but can still sting, “A Brain to Burn” describes insomnia where the future mocks him, and “Life Falls Away” repeats a mantra about life dissipating and a shining shard pulled from the heart. It’s a stark reminder of mortality and leaves you feeling like Bowley has sung himself to the edge of the universe and back.

BANDCAMP