On their spellbinding sophomore album, Whispers in the Speech Machine, the young Ohio siblings from The Laughing Chimes have fully embraced their Southern Gothic influences.
“We challenged ourselves to take on the new approach of a spooky jangle-pop sound,” explains guitarist/vocalist Evan Seurkamp. “I always describe it as R.E.M. playing in a graveyard or abandoned church. They’re from Athens, Georgia and we’re from Athens, Ohio, so we clearly have some kind of spiritual connection.”
While attending an afterschool music program at their local opera house, Evan and his brother Quinn began recording The Laughing Chimes’ debut album. Released in 2020 by Pretty Olivia Records, In This Town rapidly raised the duo’s profile, leading to their signing to Slumberland. A string of digital singles and cassette EP between LPs one and two followed, plus recent highlights such as opening for their heroes Guided By Voices. The eight assured songs of Whispers in the Speech Machine prove The Laughing Chimes deserve these accolades, while their approaches to songwriting and sonic aesthetics continue to evolve.
“I have a closet full of dark, brooding clothes, but I wouldn’t say I’ve always been a goth,” laughs Evan. “Adopting the image is a more recent thing to reflect our sound, but I’ve also been trying to find a balance because our music has other influences, too. A lot of modern goth music is very electronic, which is a shame. Why are people scared of guitars?”
Alongside the lingering lyrical influence of Robert Pollard, allowing listeners to derive their own meanings from his surrealist streams of consciousness, these songs draw upon the desolate environments of The Laughing Chimes’ home state. “Southeast Ohio is the foothills of Appalachia, so it has this indescribable mood and atmosphere to it,” Evan told The Big Takeover. “Sometimes there’s a haunting weight of decay you want to escape, but at the same time there is some sort of strange romanticism surrounding ghost towns. We’ve tried to channel those moods to add more regional flavor into our sound.”
References to classic ghost stories and folk tales are peppered throughout the album, with stops at several infamous Ohio locales. Synthy first single “High Beams” borrows its title from an entry in the book Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark, channeling a dangerous late night highway encounter into an impending romantic breakdown. With its heavier shoegaze sound, “He Never Finished A Thought” nods to the classic supernatural story Wait ‘Til Martin Comes.
“It’s about a man who breaks down on the side of the road and meets a group of talking cats who debate amongst themselves about what they will do to him," Evan explains. “Theme-wise, it’s more of a spooky love song about waiting too long to tell someone about your feelings, and then it’s too late.”
“Mudhouse Mansion” closes the album on a moody note with bright, rambling riffs propelling evocative phrases such as “the room’s a blur on the Polaroid inside your dreams.” Evan didn’t have a chance to visit the song’s titular 1800s style farmhouse before it was torn down in 2015, but he’s known about its reputation for ghost hunting since he was a kid.
“Around here, you have to create your own things to do as you grow up and find your own place in the world,” he says. “Retelling those kinds of ghost stories and creating myths is a lot of fun, even if you know they’re not true. It gives you a purpose to visit these haunted locations and figure things out for yourself.”
— Jesse Locke
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