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February 20, 2007
the Astounding Song Machine
With the run up to the show this past week (and I thought I'd give you all a bit of a respite before I roll out the big recap), I haven't had the chance to discuss some stuff I've been enjoying, both old, new, and new to me. Making up for it in a cluster, here's five...
These New Puritans - "En Papier"
These New Puritans continue to impress, even if their relative blog invisibility makes finding their songs a bit of a chore. About a two week ago the UK teens made their Now Pluvial EP available for free download on their confusing website, after the initial print run had expired. Then they took it away two days later. Did you catch it? I was going to tell you, but then I didn't.
The band's charm in this early stage seems to be marrying the stomping, barking deadpan of the Fall with the twitching (occasionally floating) deadpan of Liars. Which is so obvious, that it borders on brilliant. Like what if we took this ice cream cake and threw some peanut butter in there? One of the year's most exciting debut album prospects that you're not excited about.
The Nicolas Cage pic took in about $45 mil. at the box office, and is quite certainly terrible. I'm a sucker for comic book movies, and they're all fairly adolescent, but there's something about a flaming skeleton in a leather jacket that does motorcycle tricks that suggests a dim witted ten year old's demented notebook scribbling. You're waiting for a stealth bomber and a T-rex to show up.
Suicide's ode to Johnny Blaze and his blue jumpsuit has the reverse effect, sounding better as the years go by and adding a touch of sexy danger for the ladies. I don't mean any disrespect to Black Sabbath, but this is the best song ever named for a Marvel Comics character.
It probably won't help my reputation as a Kate Jackson stalker to tell you that I got this song from an offhand mention of hers in an issue of the NME. Discovering some semi-ignored ABBA 26 years after the fact demands an explanation, however. I've been a bit hard on the cheesiness of the archetypal Swede poppers before, but this track feels almost like a completely different animal. I apologize for the ignorance, but there isn't a scene in Mamma Mia where the cast is assaulted by jackbooted thugs, is there?
Taken from their final studio album of the same name and recorded in 1981 after both in-group couples had divorced, it's tempting to try to attribute this darker material to interpersonal strife. Aside from a few broad lines like, "My whole world is falling, going crazy," it's hard to read relationship trouble into this narrative about persecuted Russian dissidents being abducted. You read that right. Of course, being ABBA, the rising tension of the home invasion takes the form of a tight and infectious disco beat. The synth tones are stranger than usual, though. The electro pulse sounds kinda dirty, and the higher pitched alien washes that interject on the chorus swells aren't that far removed from the first Magazine album (although the guitar work doesn't stand up to that improbable comparison). If you've never heard this and you think you have a total handle on ABBA, or conversely avoided their sunny disposition like the plague, prepare for a minor revelation.
It always generates goodwill for me when a band, newly hyped and beloved, strikes the hot iron. Prolific output at the right time can nudge a crush over to a full blown obsession. If "Like New" is a representative offering from the looming Flourescent Grey EP, we're in for more mysterious and lovely songs in the vein of the schizophrenic Cryptograms' second half personality. "Be like you/ Be like new" isn't much to cling to lyrically, but there isn't a second of this that isn't gorgeous.
Now this is kind of a miracle. What are the chances that the original (and supremely awesome) line up of Dinosaur Jr. would make up, tour, and stumble directly back onto the path they abandoned after Bug? I mean it doesn't seem so far fetched on paper, but these things almost never end in a satisfying way. Anyone out there have confidence that new material from the Stooges or the Pixies will fare nearly this well? Maybe the low expectations are letting a song that's simple and melodic and squarely in the band's former sweet spot signify too much. But what could we all want more than that assured, but too muted to be gratuitously wanky guitar wrangling, horse voiced insecurity, and warm lo fi fuzz? More of it all, I guess. That wish has a come true date of May 1st.
Posted by Jeff Klingman at February 20, 2007 10:38 AM
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Comments
Abba. Big Guitar mught not have been their thing, but to say it's not up to the standard of Magazine is a low blow. That band's guitar hero John McGeoch was so desperate for fame he played on Fade to Gray with Visage. Hardly up to Dancing Queen standard I think!
Posted by: derek at February 20, 2007 02:27 PM
"The Visitors" would seem to foreshadow the dark, synth-y route that Frida took on "Something's Going On," her hit of a year later. Take the warmth and playfulness from the ABBA template, add a generous helping of paranoia and Phil Collins's enormous gated drums, and there you have it: ABBA 2.0.
Posted by: skysby at February 20, 2007 03:03 PM
Your take on Ghost Rider was funny and dead on.
Thanks for the sample of "Suicide/Ghost Rider". Never heard them or the song.
Nice offering.
Posted by: Casey at February 20, 2007 05:37 PM
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