Drug Warm Coma / Keep Crawling - Out Now

Efflo “will give you the bad feels in a good way”. – Noisey

They are four painfully unique individuals that, despite their differences, have created something that is difficult to define. For Efflo, there is no “file beside”, no “for fans of”. They are pioneers in an age of sameness, when everyone is claiming to be different – and don’t worry, the irony of doing just that isn’t lost upon them.

Deriving their namesake from the word “efflorescence”, a term with 18th century Latin origins that translate from “to bloom” or “to flower out”, and an antonym for death, to effloresce is the act of moisture evaporating away, leaving crystallized salt and decay in its place. Perhaps more intriguing are the luminous, flat plate corals found in the Arabian Sea and Bay of Bengal. With their vibrant, exotic patterns, these rare corals are known as Acropora efflorescens, or “efflo” for short.

At a tumultuous time in the band’s history, they were able to find a light in the darkness and grow stronger from it. Efflo represents a rebirth of sorts, building on what came before, but charging forward without looking back. Rigid, but beautiful; challenging, but familiar; and, of course, still dark at its core.

With its beginnings in 2013, when singer-songwriter Sadye Cage was playing small acoustic gigs in her hometown under the band’s former moniker, Sc Mira, it wasn’t long before the music began to take a darker tone. As the music changed, so too did the nature of the project, going from a solo configuration to a band, eventually settling in with the current line up of Cage, Mario Lagassé, Caro LaFlamme, and Joel Leonhardt.

Across 2017 and 2018, Efflo released a parallel pair of EPs known as Keep Crawling / Drug Warm Coma, and found themselves on stages across North America, including an unforgettable slot opening for Kesha on the Fourth of July at Milwaukee Summerfest. The self-produced EPs were guided by an unlikely partner in mix-engineer Ferro Montanino, a pop producer and composer with a knack for film work and an inspired collaboration with electronic heavyweight Skrillex under his belt. Ferro’s knowledge of the electronic and pop world complimented Efflo’s synth-driven dance-rock in an unusual way, and thus the term “death pop” was born.

It’s been a wild ride for this young band, with performances and major festival appearances ranging everywhere from Chicago and New York, to Toronto, Vancouver, and Montreal, as well as a trip across the Pacific, performing to an immense crowd of teary-eyed fans in Tokyo. Still, it feels as though this is only the very beginning.

Efflo will make you uncomfortable – you’ll question who they are and where they came from, trying to put them in a box that they’ll never fit in. Once you get over the initial shock, though, you’ll realize that you are hearing something new for the first time in a long time; and suddenly, out of the darkness comes a bright, exotic light unlike anything you’ve ever seen before.