Video Premiere: Clâm, “Levee Lament”
https://theobelisk.net/obelisk/2026/01/15/clam-levee-lament-vid-premiere/
JJ Koczan: January 15, 2026
https://theobelisk.net/obelisk/2026/01/15/clam-levee-lament-vid-premiere/
JJ Koczan: January 15, 2026
Multinational heavy post-rockers Clâm will make their self-titled debut March 20. The four-piece — who generally stylize their moniker all-lowercase: clâm — are premiering a video below for the opening track/second single “Levee Lament,” which follows behind “Here and Now,” and in its repetitions speaks to a bluesy foundation beneath the ambience and resonant distortion and shimmer that preface the rush of distortion which “Levee Lament” is perhaps using to convey an actual flood. The beginnings of the band bear out their bluesiness — some version of clâm existed a decade ago as Clambake, working in more of a roots-music context — though the 33-minute entirety of Clâm, the album and its six component tracks, demonstrates just how far they’ve come building outward from there.
“Levee Lament” blends tonal presence, with hints of heft to come in the initial bass and drums, and a marked sense of drift in the guitar. The band — vocalist Michelle Blythe, guitarist Sven Hollmann, bassist Eddie Blythe and drummer/sometimes vocalist Björn Giebler — blend exploration and structure fluidly, and the vocals of the first verse set a pattern of repetition that the other songs will hold to before, right around 1:20, a volume burst brings new density of fuzz, soon to ebb, but soon to return with a grungeier push into the airy solo, prefacing the crescendo in theclam clam cover second half to come. The subsequent “Outside” functions not entirely dissimilarly, with repeated urgings to “go outside” — fair enough, it’s been a while — but has more of a krautrocking rhythm beneath its shoegazy float. This sets up a contrast in “Here and Now,” which begins at a slower roll, becomes more fervent in the drums and thickens the distortion throughout the presumed end of side A.
Side B begins brooding and percussive, or at least meditative, in “Home,” with a drone rising up through guitar and giving way after the intro to a start-stop bassline push and forward vocal clarity. The line, “Godspeed, my lover” cycles through for the verses, and lets go into a chorus backed by rich fuzz, subtly growing heavier as it moves. The acoustic strum of “Borrowed,” the shortest track at 3:30, comes in like a departure given the wash of effects conjured elsewhere, let alone the synthiness that follows on closer “Lovely Time,” but they make the folkishness work for them at Blythe‘s lyrics build in kind with the instrumental measures. “Lovely Time” is more urbane and that’s clearly the idea, returning to some of the progressivism of “Outside,” and bookending with “Levee Lament” as a hynotic lead back into the real world, which I’ll admit feels a little less warm in comparison to the sounds emitted throughout Clâm.
There is adventure here, but a plan at work as well, if you want to put it on those terms. Part of it is the history of bluesier fare, and part is a forward-looking post-heavy rock use of fuzz and distortion as an immersive backdrop into which a listener might plunge. I guess it makes sense, then, that there are so many waves in the video, as you’ll see below.