Peak Eloquence — The Cancer Ward
Brad Rose continues his re-emergence with a new project, Peak Eloquence. And yet, I can’t help but notice the disconnect between project name and the music of The Cancer Ward.
The music herein is not so eloquent, but rather quite a blunt instrument. Guitars awash in reverb, delay, and fuzz create a repetitive, yet brittle display of distorted strings. Yet the irony of it all on an album plainfully titled The Cancer Ward makes it all come together.
This is not some cosmic joke. Just because the music lacks eloquence does not mean it lacks grace, humility, or comfort. Just because the music is aware, diligent, and fragile does not mean it lacks strength.
Rose’s guitar work on The Cancer Ward is both a knife and a tourniquet, exposing the rawest muscle and bone in a time of deep vulnerability, then tightly wrapping the wounds to remind us comfort can be sought in the strangest of bedfellows.
Turns out 2020 has been a great year for the guitar. People are (re)discovering its power, its flexibility, its duality. Rose has turned to it as a raw, visceral outlet that both claws at us in defense of itself, but also purrs as if to provide a bit of needed security in what has been a bitter and destructive year that has no light at the end of the tunnel. But The Cancer Ward, even at its bleakest, at least provides a flicker.
