Bullet Points Have Saved Their Chills For You with Paso Doble

Bullet Points have been running through the Indy music scene for four years now but you’d be forgiven if you thought they were a longer running legacy act. Their members have been at the forefront of punk and rock acts in Indy for the last two decades, although not necessarily in this configuration. Looking through the MFT archive you’ll find that members were connected through other regional and national acts like Extra Blue Kind, Beta Male, State, Coolidge, the Lemonheads, and more.

Bullet Points at the 2020 Battle of the Bands

A finalist in the recent MOKB Battle of the Bands held at the Vogue, the two main collaborators in Bullet Points, David Hazel and David Barajas originally hooked up in legendary Bloomington rockers Extra Blue Kind, who not so coincidentally won a similar Battle of the Bands contest held over a decade ago. EBK went through the whole experience of winning the showcase, touring and getting a huge following, flirting with major labels and ultimately breaking up before breaking through. Hazel went on to form Beta Male and later spent time with Evan Dando as a member of the Lemonheads, and Barajas went on to form State and perform with Stealing Volume (among others). Matt Beaumont and TJ Briggs, no slouches themselves having spent times in Coolidge and Beta Male, fill out a sound that is both robust and measured, packing tension into each measure. Much like the soul bands of the 50s and 60s, every piece in this album has been though out and crafted individually, but come together into a complete piece that complements the sum of its parts.

Despite the familiarity of some of the vocals and personalities in the band, there is still something refreshing and somewhat mysterious in every track on their newly released full length, Paso Doble. Pulling back the curtain on the spooky Twin Peaks aesthetic of the album reveals Bullet Points as a fine-tuned hit machine hitting on all cylinders. Drawing on decades of experience in a variety of acts they have come back together to deliver a fully realized vision of dream pop. Paso Doble is equal parts Nine Inch Nails and My Bloody Valentine but maybe with more T Rex and Bowie than you’d guess at first glance.

“Paso Doble” is named after a traditional Spanish dance and music genre associated with bullfights and this theme is woven throughout the lyrics referring to romantic loss, but perhaps like much of the Bullet Points aesthetic, there is more going on here. The balance of artists who have experienced some level of success separately reuniting decades later to create an album that is both cogent and rich can’t be overlooked. David Hazel’s voice and pop sensibilities run throughout the record but Dave Barajas’s bass drives the songs and you can hear the passion in his voice in the background. When I talked to David Hazel we talked about how he is a producer in his own right (He’s done albums for Wife Patrol and Andy D lately), but with Paso Doble, Mike Bridavsky at legendary Bloomington Russian Recording came in to produce (one of Mike’s notable albums was State’s tremendous 2008 release “You Shouldn’t Stare”). The album is a collaboration of the band, with some songs that have been workshopped live over the last few years, and some that were in-studio creations. A true dance of bulls.

The album kicks off with “Blood Dreams”, a dreamy My Bloody Valentine send up with Bram Stoker shivers (“All your blood runs out, I can’t save you now”). From here Bullet Points send us on a trip: from dreamy goth-pop like “Erase Me” which features a narrator going through an Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind snap: Dance-y near shoegaze in the title track and “Still Life”; “Just Like You” has a frenzied rock dance beat that I wouldn’t have been surprised to see on a State record, but in Bullet Points hands there is the maturity to hold everything back and create a manic build up that leaves the listener leaning into every piece. My favorite track is the subdued “Save My Chills” Where Hazel takes on a soulful Marc Bolan pastiche and sums up the group’s up and down experiences that have gotten to this point :

Been around the world touring with a band I’ve been everywhere. I am on top just to get dropped down into despair. Oh the thrills I have had a few as I’m sure you know. But I saved my chills for you.