Here at the Send Me Your Ears studio today, we’ve been listening to the latest single from Dave Belding. Purge and Flourish was released on May 26th, 2023, and for fans of Art Rock and Prog rock, this is one for you.
Purge and Flourish is a song about self-reflection and finding strength through self-improvement. Belding says, “I’ve made mistakes in life I can’t take back. I learned all my lessons the hard way because I’m stubborn. It’s about realizing I’m in a better place now, but I’m not sure if I strayed off the right path.”
Purge and Flourish is a 5-minute track which we feel has all the elements needed to be placed as a soundtrack, and we’d urge Belding to look into opportunities. The track fades in with distant atmospheric sounds and instruments and some great use of stereo. It has a definite Roger Waters-feel to it, together with a few 90s grunge elements. We found ourselves slow-nodding along to this track and getting lost in the moment. Perhaps a great study vibes or chillout track for a late-night playlist.
Purge and Flourish has touches of psychedelia in it and the use of detuning on the guitar creates some exciting and unexpected chord progressions that helped maintain our interest. There are some Edge-like effects and delays on the guitar tracks to make them sound huge and fill out the sound. We caught a touch of Marillion here too. Fans of Art Rock and chillout music will be very drawn to this track.
Ideas from our ears
The vocal track is being used simply as another instrument rather than a focal point. The heavy and distant effects on the vocal, although creative and interesting, result in them being a little hard to distinguish lyrics, although we did hear some superb vocal belting, especially around 4 minutes. Some careful work on the faders of the other instruments could help make the vocals more audible. As always, these are just some ideas from our ears.
Final thoughts
We thoroughly enjoyed Dave Belding’s latest single, Purge and Flourish. Art Rock is right up our street and the clever use of detuned guitars and creative delays and reverbs made this a very relaxing and pleasant listen.
https://www.facebook.com/Davebeldingband
https://open.spotify.com/artist/2dLn5Gh4xfvWXCBxEBY3Gl
https://davebelding.bandcamp.com/track/little-dancer
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bGvBuy32ze4&list=OLAK5uy_kzzfXLGCAx4ves-qH2B4Gyf8Bj7H1oQU0
https://www.instagram.com/beldingdave/