Atlanta Band Strumbrush Releases Debut Album “Whirlwind”

The Atlanta band Strumbrush, a four-piece alternative rock outfit has released their debut album “Whirlwind”. Released April 19 under independent record label Rope Bride, the album consists of 11 songs.

The band, formed in 2019, currently consists of Foster Wells on guitar and vocals, Jack Pace on guitar and vocals, Thomas Evans on drums and Justin McPhillips on bass. The current members of the band have been together since January, but “a project with the name Strumbrush has been around for almost five years now, in very different shapes and sizes, besides for the most part, Jack and I,” said Wells.

Wells and Pace are long time friends and have been involved in the Atlanta music scene for a number of years. 

“Jack and I have known each other for a while, since we were in middle school,” Wells said. “We go pretty far back, and have been working on each other’s projects and doing projects together for a long time.”

The album began coming into shape around two years ago when Evans joined the band in 2022, Wells said. The songs included on “Whirlwind” were finished about a year ago, with the second year of production being spent recording and mixing the album.

“We split stuff up and recorded guitars and bass on our own at this house we’re living at.” Wells said. “Then we went into the studio. We just figured it’d be best to go into an actual space where they have real gear and know what they’re doing.”

Spanning 40 minutes, “Whirlwind” is a sprawling and varied alternative rock album. It has no shortages of dynamics, texture, and interesting songwriting. Influences cited by Pace for this album were bands like XTC, Palm, and Television. Wells added that East Coast alternative rock and shoegaze were also genres that the band pulled from for the album. Tracks like “Mold” showcase a very Radiohead-esque vocal delivery style from Wells, and tracks like “Caught in a Smile” showcase expansive production akin to albums like “Pet Sounds.” In an almost progressive-rock way, “Whirlwind” twists, winds, and develops throughout the course of each track.

The album explores themes of dissociation, identity, and reconnection. “I’ve been thinking how disconnected and disassociated I have been feeling for a while. Going into these songs was an attempt to feel re-sensitized to life, and to be more connected,” Wells said. “It was to bring a lot of the magic back into life.”

“For me, most of it goes back to anxiety associated with becoming a version of myself that’s more true to what I wanted, but having this anxiety of the perception of people close to me,” Pace said. “I found myself being afraid to show myself to anyone. But then I would think, ‘I need to’, because we’re all just going to die anyway.”

“I just played the drums,” Evans said.

Strumbrush will play a private show on April 19 to celebrate the release of the album alongside Buice and 15,000 Guns, two other bands from Atlanta, as well as Fishbug, a band from Athens. The album is available on streaming services, as well as on cassette tapes that are available on the band’s Bandcamp and Rope Bridge’s Bandcamp.