|
BUNDLE OF HISS:
Sessions 1986-1988
(Loveless)
Alongside stereos in bedrooms scattered along the I-5 corridor
between Salem and Bellingham, slightly graying dudes wrap
themselves in much-beloved flannels (purchased before
it was trendy, they'll have you know), don headphones and
nod along to a CD of pummeling, slog-tempo drums, sub-Sabbath
vocals and buzzing, chugging guitars. Where did it all
go wrong? This salvage job of previously lost recordings
by proto-grunge quasi-legends reminds you why the vaunted
"Seattle sound" became such a hot commodity. The bitterness
and bile locked in BOH's noise must have burned like vitriol
up against the braindead pop of the era. Naturally, these
methodical metal workouts sound a little stale these days,
but then, they are almost 15 years old. Think about
that.
ELLIOTT:
False Cathedrals
(Revelation)
While Revelation Records usually muscles up with tatts-and-attitude
hardcore, even tough guys gotta cry sometimes. Those are
the times when Elliott (the band, not Smith) sneaks out
of the shadows and commandeers the stereo. Wedding the weepy
pop of Sunny Day Real Estate to the lugubrious meditations
of Red House Painters (and even the multitracked power-rock
arrangements of, say, Night Ranger or Journey), Elliott
paints its expressionist pictures with layers upon layers
of sound--resounding power chords on top of delicate arpeggios
on top of buzzing drones on top of moaned and/or whispered
vocals. You could lose yourself in the spaces between those
layers, swept away by the broad strokes and emotions. Or
you could just laugh at the overblown, capital-D Drama of
it all. But then emo kids don't have enough of a sense of
humor to laugh at anything, now do they?
MORPHINE:
Bootleg Detroit
(Rykodisc)
This actually is a bootleg--recorded by some fanboy
on the Cure for Pain tour--but the sound levels are
tolerable enough; a little more bass, less crowd noise and
some boost in the tin-can-telephone vocals and this would
be a prime live document of Morphine's whiskey-and-cigarettes
noir pop. Why a live album, you say? Weren't Mark Sandman's
minimal arrangements best appreciated on record, as you
slouched under a bare light bulb with a bottle of economy
bourbon, alone at 3 am in a solitary sauna of a room? Sure.
But on Bootleg Detroit, saxman Dana Colley is given
a bit more freedom to blow his horn into the dark corners,
shading in the white spaces more completely. Two Quicktime
videos are also included on the disc, just so you can see
the smoke and sweat.
WINDSOR FOR THE DERBY
Difference and Repetition
(Young God)
More sparse, fragile and mostly instrumental ruminations
from this Austin band. Though Windsor has solidified its
sound--via more traditional guitar-drum interplay--so that
it no longer floats on watery, near-ambient waves, the frequently
glacial pace of the music follows its own slow drift, developing
from simple, crystalline guitar plinks to hypnotic riffs
with a subliminal pulse. Kinda like Slint with a fat handful
of Quaaludes, dude.
ADD N TO (X):
Add Insult to Injury
(Mute)
Those twiddling Brits with the fetish for knobby analog
synths are back. As always, their squiggly electro-doodles
alternately entice and annoy, either splurting with a deliriously
weird liquidity or wallowing in the retro mud of Moog-y
hums and hiccups. When they enlist the old keyboard soldiers
into service to execute a planned attack--like the dive-bombing
bass of "MDMH (Miami Dust Mite Harvest)" or the misfiring
scrapes of "Incinerator No. 1"--Add N to (X) is a synth
army to be reckoned with. But cutesy crap like the Gary
Glitter-ish march of "Monster Bobby" and the chimes-plus-vocoder
cheesiness of "Plug Me In" sink under the weight of their
own masturbatory irony. Spare us.
|
