‘Dralms’ is the latest project led by songwriter Christopher Smith and is more a reinvention than a fresh moniker. Working with long-time collaborators: Shaunn Watt (drums), William Kendrick (synth, keys) and Peter Carruthers (bass) and featuring producer/electronic artist Andy Dixon (Secret Mommy, Caving), which Smith previously trusted with a remix of Earning Keep’s “Pillars and Pyre.”

The band’s first release, Crushed Pleats, has a swampy ambience and deep bass pulse. Smith’s lyrics push listeners to look through a dystopian lens, exposing powerlessness, fear, rhetoric, and ignorance. The socio-political implications on Crushed Pleats’ track “Divisions of Labour,” exist contextually, behind a confession of lust. Smith’s words drip with derision as he chants longingly, “if my heart had its will / kill kill kill.” The title track, “Crushed Pleats,” grows from a fog of drone. Howling gusts of ambience haunt Smith’s tale of portent seduction as he sings, “you let your hair down / little birds come tumbling to the ground.”

Beyond the poetic prowess of the lyrics, the band’s strength is their ability to devise all-consuming instrumental build-ups. These forceful swells are thickened with cavernous bass chords and weaving electronic textures; Smith’s vocals sit atop as smooth and varied as stained glass.

Dralms, is currently working on a full-length album at Afterlife Studios in Vancouver, BC with producer/engineer John Raham.