The closest Athens, GA, trio Gláss come to revealing their city’s musical heritage is in a single bent guitar string. The cleanly twanged note acts like bunting on “Glass (-accent),” the lead single and kinda/sorta title track of the band’s new album Accent, which we’re excited to be premiering below in its entirety. When guitarist and singer Aáron Burke bends that note, he simultaneously lifts Accent from its orderly, nearly teutonic groove and boil into the kind of elbows-out dance-rock once proffered by his fellow Athenians in the B-52s. At least for a few moments.
Of course, Gláss have only been in Athens since 2014, having moved there from Greenville, SC, after touring behind their Foreign Bastard EP. That title, by the way, might be a reference to Burke himself, who moved to the US from Scotland half a decade ago. He recently told Transverso Media that “Glass (-accent)” is about “a place that is definitely more temperate than you are used to, and you had been so used to a place that is so much more comfortably chilling, and you had become so accustomed to getting used to it, that it I felt so naked not having to wrap up in warm clothing.”
Which goes a long way toward explaining Accent’s compelling iciness. The album displays an obsession with well-organized chaos—Burke, bassist Ary Davani, and drummer Sam Goldsmith delight in playing their instruments in straight and non-parallel paths, then finding their way out of the tangle. Imagine the frosted despair of Iceage hovering near the freezing point, close enough to see life on the other side but still unable to move. You can check it our below.
Accent track list
