Clavus delivers emotional hardcore music with a playful wink and a powerful scream
During their Sept. 20 performance at WUOG's "Live in the Lobby," Athens screamo band Clavus handed out audience surveys with yes or no questions that ranged from "are you hungry right now?" to "I feel confident that the future is promising." The gimmick, much like the group's music, was well thought-out and executed with artistic purpose.
Supported by woman-fronted bands Commune (Athens) and Naw (Atlanta), Clavus is scheduled to perform at Flicker Theatre & Bar on Oct. 7, the same day the first single "Choke" from their upcoming debut studio album "We're Not So Far Apart" will be released. Like the demo version that can be heard on Clavus' website, "Choke" is 56 seconds of abruptly delivered emotional hardcore.
Red Line: Athens punk band's D.I.Y. concert venue 'absolutely crucial' to local music scene
More in local music: Vision Video's Dusty Gannon lists his current top five horror movies
Still, Clavus can't be easily categorized by speed or heaviness like so many other punk and metal bands in Athens. Conspicuously devoid of chugging, fuzzed-out guitar riffs and other signposts of hardcore posturing, Clavus' sound is just as erratic and cerebral as the personalities in the band.
And though they're not siblings in real life, the members of Clavus have all taken the band name as their own last names: Lead vocalist Amie Clavus, guitarist Will Clavus, bassist Erin Clavus and drummer Luis Clavus. It's a move that speaks of a confidence behind their art that none of them might readily admit to.
"We try to take ourselves less seriously every time we play," Erin told the Banner-Herald.
The origins of Clavus have a direct line to Needle Teeth, a band Will had already started when they met Erin while the two were University of Georgia students. As the music director at WUOG from 2019-2020, Will's taste in music was as vast as it was passionate, and Erin was invited to join the band soon after.
Amie, a veteran of the Greenville, S.C. scene, shared a bill with Needle Teeth as a member of the band Horrible Girl & the Hot Mess. During the COVID-19 pandemic, Will and Luis began writing songs together at the same time that Amie was looking to put together a project where she could be a lead singer who didn't play an instrument. After hearing Clavus' "Demo I" recordings that featured Amie, Will and Luis, Erin enthusiastically volunteered as the band's bassist.
Characterized by diminished or augmented chords, uneven time signatures and tempo changes, Clavus' sound can best be described as raw and chaotic hardcore with an occasionally melodramatic mood chased with Amie's abrasive vocals. "We're Not So Far Apart," which is planned for a winter 2022 release, consists of ten tracks that clock in at a lean and mean 23 minutes.
"We take Clavus very seriously, but I've got this snarky wordplay I try to fit in whenever possible," said Amie. "It gives me a chance to be really loud, intense and freewheeling, but I'm not the person who's driving it. It's very much the four of us putting these songs together as a group, even if it sometimes means we have to ask Will not do this song in 7/4 time signature."
This article originally appeared on Athens Banner-Herald: Screamo siblings Clavus hand out audience surveys after their gigs
