Any band can take some songs and throw them together on a CD. Any band can realize that those songs play better in a certain order. Very few bands go to the trouble of making the songs work together in such a way that they must be played in the order they've been laid out. Even fewer bands seem to compose songs with the express intent of them leading into each other in organic, meaningful ways. For this fact alone, Hurl win me over. They've gone to the trouble of making the loping, minimal "This Numbness" build into the frantic, angular "Test the Waters" in such a way that the two tracks are both inexorably connected and each their own entity. They've done this for pretty much the length of this EP, even including their cover of Nice Strong Arm's "Amnesia" in the tapestry, and they've made it sound effortless all the while.
This EP is a definite grower. At first I was just moderately respectful of both the band's chops and the sense of unity the EP had, but every subsequent listen has pulled out new things to be awed by. All this before it became more than obvious that the songs themselves were all great examples of extremely mathy indie rock, like what would happen if Minus the Bear's DNA was mixed with Don Caballero's. The two guitarists expertly wind around each other without stepping on toes, bassist Matt Jencik - sometime Don Cab member, and it shows - ably handles the more melodic playing over the guitars' scenery and while the drummer isn't a virtuoso he navigates and directs the changes with a nice, deft touch. I still wouldn't call this a sterling example of the form, but it's certainly one that keeps me coming back. [8.4/10]
If Cheltenham is anything like it is portrayed by Cheltenham, I don't think I'd put it on my travel itinerary whenever I get around to visiting England. This EP sounds like failure. It reeks of a dead industrial plant that used to provide jobs but has shut down and begat an unemployed massive. In the background, you can almost hear a child's spirit breaking as he realizes that he's stuck here forever. That's the level of detail that The Azusa Plane imbue this piece with. The beauty of it is that that detail is spawned from as few elements as possible; two heavily treated guitars occupy either channel and play very few notes, each is stuck against a stark drone. It's almost like the more minimalist-leaning pieces of Steven R. Smith's catalog, but played for depressing effect moreso than anything Smith's done, or Jackie-O Motherfucker if they were stripped down to just the guitar figures. Essentially, it's droney space rock with a heavy negative streak that rewards a close listen just as well as it fills the role of background music. That's as much as you can ask for with this type of thing, really. [8.2/10]
I struggle with what to rate this one, honeslty. On it's own terms it's definitely upper-middle tier post-hardcore imbued math rock - think the intersection of Unwound and U.S. Maple - with fantastic bass playing and hints towards bigger, brighter things based on the ease with which it uses atmosphere. In the scope of what 90 Day Men would become shortly hereafter, once they brought on keyboardist Andy Lansangan and moved into much less abrasive waters, it's significantly lacking and utterly juvenile. So how to proceed? Do I rip into it for not being anything like the band that, quite frankly, I don't think they knew they could become, or do I set aside the future greatness and offer it praise for being what it is?
If the rating wasn't a big enough clue, I lean towards the latter quite decidedly in this case; regardless of how it fails to measure up to the twin triumphs of To Everybody and Panda Park, this doesn't even seem to be the work of the same band. This is a group of young, angry guys who worship at the altar of Steve Albini ("Streamlines and Breadwinners" couldn't sound more like Shellac if it tried) but have a nascent sense of songcraft that occasionally rubs against their more abrasive instincts ("My Trip to Venus" is incredibly catchy, especially that little guitar break in the chorus, for all its dissonance.) They probably spent a bit of time digging through the Gravity Records back catalog ("Sweater Queen" calls to mind Clikitat Ikatowi until it builds up to that half-speed breakdown) but might have eyes towards Chicago-bred post rock even before they know how to harness that sound ("Sink Potemkin" and especially "Hey, Citronella!" seem to have appropriated an epic streak or two from that lot, even as they thrive on uncomfortable levels of abrasion.) It's a very young sounding release, but at the same time it's incredibly practiced and polished. It's of two minds, but never sounds like an identity crisis. It doesn't hint towards the melodic beauty that they'd unleash a few years later, but it works its own kind of magic within its own confines. [8.1/10]
If you look at them in the abstract, each of the first three Clinic singles follows a similar pattern; the A-side is usually a fairly energetic rocker while the two B-sides are some combination of a moody instrumental, an even more energetic punk approximation and a slow, atmospheric ballad. In the case of "Cement Mixer" the punkier number is eschewed leaving a pair of moody number on the B-side, but the title track is probably the hardest rocking of the A-sides from this period. "Cement Mixer" almost sounds like a reprise of the previous single's "D.P.," except it feels much more relentless. Everything from the driving guitar line to the vocal delivery seems to push the track onward at a relatively breakneck pace while still maintaining the hookiness that all three A-sides had in spades. It's nowhere near the perfection of "Monkey on Your Back, but it's easy to see why it's the one that led to their breakthrough.
The B-sides aren't as much of a letdown this time out, probably owing to the whole not having to live up to "Monkey on Your Back" thing. "Kimberly" especially seems like the blueprint for most of Clinic's better ballads from here on out - unsettling as fuck, but with a weirdly sweet undercurrent. "Voot" fills the instrumental requirement, and while it doesn't quite match "Evil Bill" in that department it's a nice enough way to end the single. [8.5/10]
Clinic: Monkey on Your Back (Aladdin's Cave of Golf)
Why is it that the way that Ade Blackburn snarls the word 'nervous' during the first verse makes it sound so damned unnerving? Is it the scuzzy, VU-ish organ backdrop? The delivery, with that first syllable extended to the perfect point to induce spine tingles? Is it just that the whole song is so weirdly engrossing yet unbearably tense that every word carries menace not exactly inherent to it? Whatever it is, every time he says it, my back feels like it's been bombarded with tiny shards of ice. That's what one word does in this song.
So yeah, without extending myself into further hyperbole, "Monkey on Your Back" is absolutely perfect. It's perfect in the macro, it's perfect down to the tiniest details, like that bass swoop that kicks in during the second verse then becomes part of the main riff for the third, or the weird 'frame missing' vibe that the instruments dropping out before the third verse lends to the song. It's not the first time the Clinic showed just how good they could be - "Porno" was equally noteworthy if not as perfect - but it's the first time they hit the nail right on the head without any reservations. It's their mission statement, really: take Spectorian grandeur, add Velvet Underground abrasion, let the atmosphere do the rest. Really, even if the rest of this single was utter gash there's no way that I could hand it less than 4 stars.
Luckily though, both of the B-sides deliver even if it's on a much lesser scale than the A-side. "Evil Bill" in particular re-affirms the band's ease with mood and atmosphere as it takes about half the running time of most post-rock tracks to develop a similarly deep reserve of mood and tension. "D.T." is much more slight than either of its bookends, but in terms of displaying the band's versatility it does a decent job of showing how well they take to noisier material while still retaining their core Spectorian vibe. Neither lives up to the standard that "Monkey" sets, but both are integral parts of the band's canon nonetheless. [9.1/10]
Download link courtesy of Amor Louco.Contains the full self-titled compillation with all three of Clinic's early singles.
Ever wished that someone would take the Shotmaker / Max Colby split and combine the two sides into one EP? If so, your wish is Tintoretto's command. They've taken Shotmaker's aggression and drive and married it to Max Colby's tight, intricate playing and math-rock inclinations, essentially giving you the best of both worlds in one fairly excellent package. It's far from being at their influence's quality level for the whole 21 minutes, but there are moments, particularly on the raging, intense "Rifle Merit Badge" and at various points during the two longer numbers, that suggest that had they kept going long enough they might have gotten there eventually. What's here is good enough to keep around though, definitely an overlooked entry in the later day emocore scene. [8.0/10]
I don't know what exactly it is about this particular release that catches my fancy while the rest of Clikitat's discography never did much for me. At any rate, this release basically stations Clikitat Ikatowi as the Public Image Ltd. of the San Diego hardcore scene. The guitars are icy and distant, the bass is warm and almost dubby, the drumming is amazing - Mario Rubalcaba can be a beast when the mood strikes him - and most importantly, the songs are intricate without being too proud of that fact. Take closer "Pleiadian Dance" for example; it winds through about a half dozen themes, all in different times and tempos, but it doesn't call attention to that fact the way a lot of math-rock inclined bands do, it just feels like that's the way the song should logically go. At the same time though, it almost feels like they're holding back to some degree. "The Appliance" feels incomplete, like they had another 4 minutes of material that went with what was presented but just decided to cut it off. Likewise, there are a few tracks that hint towards a much heavier jazz influence than they ever manage to show, like the shuffling rhythm of "Ramble on Candywrappers" or the drumming on any given track - like I said, Rubalcaba's among the best drummers I've heard in this type of band. That restraint stops this short of being a necessity unfortunately. It's a big step up for the band - just as they dissolved, natch - but it feels like it could have gone even farther and been even better. [7.9/10]
While the rest of Three Mile Pilot's output post-Another Desert seemed much geared towards where the various members were heading afterwards, this EP finds them looking decidedly backwards. I'm not just talking about the elegaic cover of Brian Eno's "By This River," though that is a highlight here, but the material here feels very much like it was meant to come in between Chief Assassin and Another Desert. "Worry" especially feels like a transitional piece, working both the unsettling, cold aggression of the former and the art-pop of the latter simultaneously to glorious, if slightly muddled effect. "Wahn" has it's toes even further back in to Assassin territory, almost dropping the piano that became so integral to the band's sound towards the end of its run. Really, this functions more as the last gasp of Three Mile Pilot before the main members started to lay out their post-break up course, and while it's not as consistent a farewell as I might have hoped for - it's probably their least unified release overall - it still manages enough quality material to keep from breaking the streak of 4-star level greatness that the band ran with through their whole first run.
Oh, and "On a Ship to Bangladesh" is the least 3MP thing they've ever done, and it's also awesome in all its cheesiness. Not a highlight so much as an interesting side-trek that merits note. [8.2/10]
Given how much they'd refine, expand and improve upon the ideas that show up here, it's easy to write off Magazine as the embryonic stages of what would become one of, if not the, most interesting and forward thinking jazz ensembles of modern times. Really, you'd be half right to ignore this and go straight to A Livingroom Hush - the electronics that would become their trademark isn't fully integrated into their sound, the music is nowhere near as dynamic and multifaceted and they throw in a random, incredibly forgettable slice of singer-songwriter piffle in the form of "seems to Me" that sticks out like a sore thumb. But at the same time, this gives context to the greatness that came only a couple of years later. You can look at this less as a piece of the puzzle than as a rough draft. I can easily picture the core members looking at this after it was completed and parsing out exactly where they got it right - "Serafin i Junglen," most of "Swedish Take Away" - and what just didn't work - "Seems to Me," the overly repetitive first couple of tracks - before starting up on their next album. In that light it makes sense, but as it is it's a flawed first step for one of the most reliably forward looking group of the last decade and a bit. [7.6/10]
Another thing about chaos without context; in some instances it can work. In some instances it can work really well. Case in point: the longest song on this EP is 71 seconds long. The whole EP goes by in less than 5 minutes. And yet even after it's over it leaves its mark, maybe even better than some of M-B's other releases from this time. Somewhere between Agata's less-guitar-sounding-than-usual playing - half the time it seems like he's trying to replicate turntable scratching on his guitar and succeeding - Yako's as-unhinged-as-usual vocals, and the necessarily solid rhythm section that's necessary when you're courting 200 bpm at every turn it coalesces into as cohesive a statement as you'd expect from this incarnation of Melt-Banana. That statement may be 'We are the poster kids for leaving ADD untreated,' but it's a statement nonetheless. [7.4/10]
The things that both bands do to their respective covers here are at once welcome yet slightly off. Braid, for instance, take the upbeat Naked Eyes version of "Always Something There to Remind Me" and slow it down enough so that it avoids being a flat out ballad but enough that it feels a bit...well, awkward. And yet at the same time that's a bit of its appeal, the drum patterns seeming to fumble along while perfectly keeping time, the synth lead being transferred to the bass, the fact that they're a good enough math-rock band to make straight 4/4 time feel alien and off-kilter. It's textbook Braid in that respect: finding the most awkward way to be normal, leaving me with mixed feeling while still coming away a bit in their favor. Burning Airlines fare better with Echo and the Bunnymen's "Back of Love," but while they retain a lot of the original's spirit they also smooth it over a bit. The vocals are robbed of their increasing urgency as the song progresses - one of the best things about the original - instead opting for a slightly more melodic variant of J. Robbins' usual vocals. It's a case where neither band lives up to the original, but they do enough to make it their own that i can't fault them too much, even if I'm less than likely to dig out these versions all that often. [7.6/10]
I can't quite figure out how to approach this one. On one hand, this is decent enough, low key IDM that seems to have a nice understanding of how to give the mechanical, impersonal sounds at its core a bit of life. On the other hand, it sounds pretty much exactly like a somnambulent Autechre EP, without a hint of the personality that later Arovane material would develop. Looking at it from either angle, it's easy to see where the improvements are to be made. This is very, very definitely a first step and does very little to hide that fact...hell it almost sounds like the embodiment of your friend saying 'I've just made this song on my laptop, let me know what I can do to make it better.' In that light I have a lot more respect for it than I usually have for the blatantly derivative, but it still falls into that classification and the respect I have for it doesn't cloud over that fact. [6.9/10] Three Mile Pilot: The House Is Loss (Paralogy)
Note: The link goes to the obsessively detailed Pukekos post with all the late peiod 3MP singles as ripped from vinyl as opposed to me ripping the songs from my copy of Songs From an Old Town We Once Knew. They're good quality rips, so enjoy.
If "In This Town I Awaken" (from the split with Boilermaker) was the last step on the journey of 3MP, this 7" is the penultimate step, and it's surprisingly one of their better singles. It's got the sort of weirdly spiky, angular art pop edge of early Pinback tethered to the newfound instrumental expanse that was hinted at in the best moments of Another Desert, another Sea, which basically hints towards the direction that both halves of the band would go in after their disbandment. It also makes great use of what I call the "Paralyzed" guitar tone, the bright, bitingly cold tone that Andy Gill dialed in for Gang of Four's best moment, especially in contrast with the full-bodied distorted rhythm guitar in the chorus sections of "The House Is Loss." "The Silver Monkey Syndicate" is almost as good, though it feels a bit more like it belonged between Chief Assassin and Another Desert in terms of tone it still has more than a little of Pinback's spike to it, and that's always welcome far as I'm concerned. All in all though, it's nice to see that even in their final recordings (prior to their recent reformation of course) 3MP managed to remain the most consistent band of the 90s. Honestly, I have a hard time thinking of any other band from that decade that I can pull out any given release and have it satisfy me anywhere near as much as the average 3MP release can, and this one's no exception. [8.3/10]
The endpoint of Three Mile Pilot's evolution far as I'm concerned. From here you can see where both Pinback and The Black Heart Procession's sounds came out of much more clearly than you can see the past of 3MP. I'm not sure if this was the last thing that they released chronologically, but "In This Town I Awaken" certainly has an air of finality to it, almost the musical equivalent of the group saying 'Where else can we go with this?' without it coming off as defeatist. It's not their best song of this era mind you, but as a final statement it has a lot of weight to it.
Boilermaker just reprise a track from their self-titled album here, but I can't quibble with that choice given that "Last on the Drive" was one of the better tracks they'd done on the whole. [7.7/10] Electric Wizard: Supercoven (Bad Acid)
I think that the EP format is perfectly suited for Electric Wizard. A thirty minute dose of their trademark early-Melvins meets Sabbath sludge is pretty much perfect while the full lengths that I've heard from them get rather trying after a while. So here you get the ideal dosage and some of the highest quality shit that they've come up with at this point as both the title track and "Burnout" are hypnotic slices of Doom Metal with enough interesting things going on in the background to reward a closer listen without a bong in your hand. "Burnout" especially features a nice array of guitar texture behind the main section's incessant bass riff and pounding drums. [8.4/10]
"With Tongues Twisting Words" is on a shortlist of my favorite tracks in the field of post-rock mainly because it never fails to change itself up at increasingly frequent intervals, yet remains the same song at its core for its entire 9 minute run. It's not a case where the song you hear at minute 9 is so far removed from the song you started with that you question whether it was meant to be one song, but one where the band manages to progress through a variety of stages and sounds while keeping in mind that it's a single composition. Sure it wades through bass-heavy jazz, U.S. Maple-like guitar, clockwork full band grooves, wurlitzer (?) imbued quasi-funk and the straight ahead GvsB gone epic sound that Ganger perfected on the EPs leading up to this one, but it all flows together so well that it's actually easier to look at it as one piece as opposed to several. It's a feat that they never quite repeat on the rest of this EP, but it's enough to keep my opinion of them high through the remaining tracks.
To be fair though, even without the high watermark set by its opener, With Tongues Twisting Words is still a marked improvement over both the material that made up the previous year's Fore compilation and the band's initial full length from later the same year. The songs are much closer to the style of the latter, but seem to condense the wide ranging influences that showed up all over it into a much tighter, compressed package, and while it lacks the sprawl of Hammock Style it more than makes up for it in terms of songcraft. The band's dual bass line up allows for a lot of interesting counter-riffing in that department, and the two basses maintain enough of a different tone - one warm and expressive, the other low and rumbling - that they don't murk up the mix too much. Add in some nice guitar texture coloring the margins and solid time keeping and you've got the recipe for some stellar, groove oriented instrumentals. Even the few occasions that vocals enter the fray, they're subtle enough to work into the songs' mood without stealing the show as it were. [8.8/10]
