1st Base Runner is the solo project of Austin based Tim Husmann, an electronic indie artist influenced by bands like Radiohead and The Virgin Suicides. Earlier this month, Husmann released a new album Seven Years of Silence, titled after the seven year hiatus the artist took from the industry, and he played all of the instrumentation himself. That time away seems to have been spent wisely, because Husmann collected the emotions and experiences from those years and turned them into a collection of deeply vunerable songs that appear here, and what is immediately obvious is that the artist clearly has had a lot to on his mind for a long time.
Husmann perfectly intertwines guitars and synthesizers to craft gloomy gothic post-punk, and songs like “Break Even” are reminiscent of the grittier side of Depeche Mode since the 90s while others like “All Thoughts” are pure darkwave. Husmann’s lyrics are strong, but he often uses them to craft a particular atmosphere, and on “Escape” he builds the track around a single lyric and the various ways to express it, and “Pirouette” is similarly based on repetition, creating the Goth equivalent of mantras to set a mood. With the closer “Ocean” the record finally drowns in its feelings of resignation and depression, and Seven Years of Silence becomes a towering monument towering monument to the melancholy that seems to be ubiquitous now.
