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CRIME + THE CITY SOLUTION – the Bride Ship
My second attempt to get back into the swing of this series.
I aborted the previous reviews I started writing (based around a Drowningman
album and another Jawbreaker release) cause they just felt samey. I realize I’m
taking this way more seriously than I should. Anyway, I got burned out after
the record store day edition and needed a breather, needed to work on other
things (that also go nowhere because hey me), but I had pretty decent haul at
Mr. Cheapos yesterday, so I figured I might as well kill some time before band
practice later. This is a pretty cool band that I’ve only just recently found
out about. Material is strongly in the bleakly romantic mold of Nick
Cave’s post-Birthday Party works.
Not exactly original, but delivered with such convincing intensity that it
never becomes a hollow aping of what came before. So far I like this album a
lot more than the previous one Shine, but
maybe I was in a crap mood that day and not equipped to deal with the music.
The drum sound is immaculate on “Dangling Man”. You know an album is good when
you’re five songs in and you’ve already picked four favorite tracks. Or I’m
just lazy. In all seriousness, the whole
album is spectacular. I can picture Anatomy of Habit covering “Three/Four”
Favorite Tracks: “the Greater Head”, “Stone”, “the Dangling
Man”, “Free World”
MELT BANANA – Cell-Scape
This is one of the only MB albums I never really checked
out. I had heard it wasn’t at the same level as Charlie, but few the fuck are. I still also haven’t heard Bambi’s Dilemma. This is the one where they
supposedly became more J-Pop sounding, which is kind of a bummer, because the
basis of their appeal lied in the blending of the squeaky J-Pop bounciness with
car-crash no-wave and skronky speed-grind, creating something no one ever
really heard before (I know I know “BOREDOMSCHHHH!!!!”… simmer down, Picky
Picardo. We’re all checking out your elitism).
I dunno… it still sounds pretty fucking weird to me. still heavy… and
YAKO! Is still everybit the cartoon madwoman (vocally and lyrically). The bass
sound is pretty monstrous. It’s definitely different, and maybe more
“accessible” than the other records… not as noisy… but I’m willing to bet if
you played this for some random square on the street they’d be perplexed and/or
annoyed. It’s almost like they made a “gateway” album for the uninitiated; a
semi-non-threatening invitation into their basement hangout. You can tell this
is when Dave Witte was drumming for them… although they say this is a drum
machine. If so, it’s one of the best drum machines I’ve ever heard. I like it
of course.
Favorite Tracks: “Shield for your Eyes, A Beast in the Well
on your Hand”, “A Dreamer who is too Weak to Face Up To”, “Chain – Shot to have
some Fun”, “a Hunter in the Rain to cut the neck up in the present stage”
SCORN – Vae Solis
The Side A line-up of Scum
playing sinister industrial metal. I have a special place in my caged
muscle knot for metal musicians exploring industrial music (and vice versa) in
the early 90s. I hope someone less of a goofy shit than myself writes a book
about that particular genre. I got my Godflesh ticket for October right in
front of me. Prurient is opening. Really looking forward to that one. Godflesh
were fucking awesome at MDF 2012, and I still have never seen Prurient live in
person. I think Nails is on it, too, but I knda hope not. They aren’t terrible
or anything, just not particularly interesting. A lot of the Southern Lord
signees from the last few years have little to no staying power. I dig
Acephalix, Black Cobra, and Dead in the Dirt is one of my favorite bands right
now, but stuff like Nails, Xibalba, all the other “dark hardcore” stuff that’s neither
“dark” or “hardcore” just does little for me. they have their moments I guess,
but I dunno… once you hear Kickback’s last 2 records all the weakness of those
other types is revealed. I’m probably just too old for it… if I was 16-18 they
would probably be my favorite bands. Southern Lord has done some nice reissues
(Sleep, Virulence, Winter, Drainland, Poison Idea), so they’re still a pretty
solid label. I didn’t think you could ape Swans any harder than Streetcleaner, but Vae Solis is giving it a run for its Holy Money (AHHHH
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA). I love it, though. Communion
has just entered into a serious writing phase. Been too long. We played an
experimental/PE track a few weeks ago @ ABC No Rio
called “Gallstone Seedbed”. Since it was just 3 of us doing it, it was
basically a free-form skeleton of an idea that will get fleshed out at some
point with further input from Joe. It’s funny writing lyrics for these
super-long compositions. Usually I have to trim the lyrics down cause there’s
just too much for the time allotted, and one of my big anxieties has always
been making sure the music doesn’t become suffocated by the vocals. But with
“Gallstone Seedbed” (and the doom track “Graphorrea”) I know have an abundance
of space, so much so that I run out of lyrics and wind up either repeating
lyrics (hate doing that), attempting to improvise (horrible at that), or
screaming movie quotes or other song lyrics by other bands. With “Gallstone” I
actually wrote some additional lyrics on the trainride to the city, but when we
played I still didn’t have enough, so I ended up screaming some of Hot Fruit’s
“Falling off the Grid”. Thankfully we’re still doing mostly short grindsludge
stuff. Started work on 2 songs like that; “Homebody”, which is one of the more
thrashy songs we’ve ever done, and “Blenorragia”, which until it has drums
sounds very black metal. I never know anymore if I should divulge all this
“behind the scenes” shit…. I’ve become increasingly paranoid with regards to
posts, artwork, etc… I never know if it’s too much information, if it makes us
look like amateurs or dorks, if the other guys in the band find it annoying or
intrusive… I’ve become increasingly unconscious in what little social awareness
I once possessed. I can’t relate to anyone and feel the opposite is also true.
I don’t mean to sound needy or desperate, I’m just venting here because I don’t
believe in therapy… rather I don’t find that a therapist would be useful to me.
therapy is a vague term that can be applied to anything. This right here could
be considered therapy I suppose. Isolation’s always been easy for me… well not
always, but you know. I’d rather not bother people with this ill-defined
horseshit. People got real gripes of their own to worry about. Lets move on
before this gets too serious business.
Favorite Tracks: “Spasm”, “Suck and Eat You”, “Lick Forever
Dog”, “Thoughts of Escape”
SWERVEDRIVER – Ejector
Seat Reservation
Well I have sufficiently made myself miserable after that
last post. Weeee. But hey, lets talk about Swervedriver. Mezcal Head is one of my favorite 90s albums. I guess they fall
into the “power-alt” territory occupied by groups like Paw, the God Machine,
Afghan Whigs, Catherine Wheel, Quicksand, Jawbox, etc. yet another sub-sub
genres that never really got a proper exploration in the public eye. I know the
dudes in Starkweather (DRAMENOP) are big into a lot of this stuff. They’re
playing this weekend @ ABC. It’s been like 5 years since I saw a full set from
them. we’ve tried to get a Communion / Starkweather bill together, but the
fates never would allow it. I guess between their bad luck and our bad luck
it’s like what happens when two magnets are facing each other. It’s a shame so
much good music from the 90s gets buried and forgotten, lost to the misguided
nostalgia of Gen Xers who’d rather rest their laurels on an over-the-hill
Soundgarden tour or laugh along to Collective Soul and Live out of faux-ironic
detachment than genuinely enjoy some of the period’s unfairly dismissed acts.
But hey, who needs to uncover the eroticism of Sybil Vane or validate the
impeccable songwriting of Jawbreaker when you can spend $114.00 watching Trent
Reznor go through the motions, hobbling through his back catalog with all the
intensity of a paperweight, his ideas and intent having long since festered? Anyway,
I don’t like this album nearly as much as Mezcal,
but its still enjoyably cool stuff. I’ve been writing for a long time. Need
a break.
Favorite Tracks: “Bring me the Head of the Fortune Teller”,
“I Am Superman”, “Ejector Seat Reservation”, “How Does it Feel to Look Like
Candy?”
