Beau Navire and the Returning Bloom
This column is a reprint from Unwinnable Monthly #190. If you like what you see, grab the magazine for less than ten dollars, or subscribe and get all future magazines for half price.
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Wide but shallow.
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Punk. Hardcore. Emotional hardcore. Post-punk. Post-hardcore. Hardcore punk. Emo. Indie. Metal. Metalcore. Scene-core. Powerviolence. Crust. Grind. Grindcrust. Crust-core. Crust punk. Blackened crust. Screamo. Scramz. Emoviolence. Flowerviolence.
To some readers, some of these words may convey some meaning, but to most, I suppose I’ve only painted a thin flowchart of loosely related prefixes and suffixes. The lion’s share of these have meanings outside of music to the majority of people, as they should. Many of them are odd terms, appearing childish, confrontational in their lack of musical definition. To those who bit on one and followed the line, each reveals (and in many ways, personally develops) a particular meaning that stretches and retracts by the band, working as a way to hold hands and guide us further along our aural interests beyond rock, alt, jazz, on and on.
The reality is that most of the list above is a way to describe bands with guitars, basses, drums and screaming that play houses, cafe parking lots, car washes, park gazebos, VFW/Lion’s club/rental hall basements, apartment shows, abandoned buildings, rentable community spaces. Sometimes, mostly nowadays with years-later reunions to support reissues that work more like second printings of an LP or cassette, the band will play a mid-sized bar or a courageous theater.
I keep thinking I’ve aged out of this madness, and in most ways I have, largely unwilling to ask a punk for directions anymore. It’s a joy to experience the community at a remove, and to revel in the memories of my own hometown scene twenty years buried as I knew it. A fly on the wall, mostly when the venue is close and I don’t need to drive. My position for these benefits remains blessed, but the counter is way past half. Though I have loved going to shows by myself for a long time, a little exercise in self-determination outside of the home.
So, I found myself a couple of days ago making my way down a familiar alley into a rentable warehouse space, once where I’ve seen weddings, art pop-ups and an R&B review, but this time I was there for the reunion tour of Beau Navire. They’re an Oakland-based band originally active from ’09 to ’12 or ’13, with two albums and many singles to their name. They broke up young and went on to many other bands in the same sonic bandwidth though the distinctions are clear if one actively listens, to which their Bandcamp page describes them as “Flowerviolence,” which means mostly fast, shouting songs, with a lot of distortion but also a fair amount of clear-ish telecaster action. But, of course, this a reduction, a disservice.
I missed Beau Navire’s first wave but got caught up in the discography .zip I probably found on Blogspot or something, back when that was the only way to really find a band like this once their first lap was finished. I’ve loved a lot of the follow-up bands like Elle, Stormlight and Loma Prieta, who I’ve had the pleasure of catching at least a couple of times. Beau hits different though.
It’s the flower, I think. This can be seen as despairing music, or at least it carries that chime with plenty of discordance and feedback, but Beau Navire excels in unspooling a path through their songs that allows for plenty of weightlessness, whether it’s the swelling intros or occasional gleams of guitar and bass that isn’t afraid to choke up. You won’t make out any words and that’s perhaps the biggest barrier to most folks, but for them to sort out.
This show in Somerville was small, smaller than I’d like for the band, but those who’d made their way knew this was something special that probably wouldn’t happen again. Beau Navire was brought out here by New Forms, local screamo heroes who keep things tightly wound and sweetly short, not unlike their inspiration in name and form, Ampere. New Forms was locked in completely, even with a pitch-hitting bassist, and lineage between these two bands is laid bare. I hope to catch New Forms many more times (though who can be certain with this music), but I was certain this was the only time I’d get to see Beau Navire.
They phased in and out of sync, just the right amount to remain human while playing music that disregards our usual natural affinities. I won’t insult them to say it’s an acquired taste, if you like hard music you should love Beau Navire, as they serve up many fine cuts and most crucially don’t overstay their welcome. It’s the kind of music made because the body requires it, and they knew exactly how to fill out this cavernous space for those who came for exactly this, the old heads who beat me to the punch, the teen who brought their metal dad who demanded they buy a shirt, the youths less interested in scenes or sonic barriers (though this has always been the case).
It was an imperfectly perfect show, a little punk time, a dash of DIY sound tech problems, but Beau Navire was glad to be there and play. You could see it on their faces, hear it in the music, their generosity of spirit bottomless at the merch table. The -violence is an audio expression the tension in our lives, the flower the breath we take in between and the community and growth we experience throughout, in whatever way we participate.
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Levi Rubeck is a critic and poet currently living in the Boston area. Check his links at levirubeck.com.
