Forest Fire

Survival was recorded over an eight month period in two locations - Brooklyn, New York and Portland, Oregon. The band set up a microphone in the centre of the studio and arranged themselves around it. As singer/songwriter Mark Thresher observes, “We wanted to make really simple organic live recordings complete with flaws. Is was very important to us to start with something spontaneous. We usually chose to include performances that were wild and unhinged over more polished versions because we wanted that kind of energy. Once we had the recordings we liked we overdubbed and processed them to make them sound as good as possible.”
"These are songs of the most universal of human themes - of sex and death, of triumph and frustration, of joy and of fury – deconstructed and expressed in the most understated of fashions. The distant rattle and grind of guitar feedback that floats almost imperceptibly in the background of ‘Steer Me’ elevates what is ostensibly a simple strummed folk song to something far grander. Similarly, the whimsical slide guitar of ‘Thru My Gloves’ belies the sinister undertone to its subject matter, the battle between the darker side of human instinct and angelic purity encapsulated in a lover who “spreads [her] legs like wings.”... The resulting hum and fizz of multiple simultaneous guitars rises, drones and recedes through each song like John Cale’s wracked viola on the early Velvets albums" -- Drowned In Sound