>>Nostalgia For Infinity

Brooklyn-based D.I.Y. duo Nothing Amazing Happens Here are, without a doubt, my favourite band named for a FLCL reference. Two provisos: I hope it’s a FLCL reference, and I admit they’re the only band I know who might take their name from that awesome OVA.

(Actually I just noticed that their Bandcamp page has a second record listed on it, and that has artwork taken from the show, so I am right. Sweet.)

Aside from how much of a nerd I am, and how much you should watch that anime if you haven’t, Nothing Amazing Happens Here recorded this four-track EP in one member’s den over the course of a week. There’s a real garage feel to it; suitably sloppy and loose with a bit of a slacker vibe. Despite its humble origins the drum sound is also pretty good; the sound and production isn’t uniformly solid, however, and some of the vocals in particular are pretty indistinct. Both members of the band take the mic at different points, though, and some tracks come through more clearly than others.

Opener ‘Moody’ is one of the more vocally sharp tunes, although they’re still pushed a bit far down in the mix to be sharply audible. Still, with buzzsaw guitars similarly low in the mix and aggressive drums with a fuckton of cymbals clashing away, the tunes suitably fast-paced and the vocal works well enough even where you can’t make out the lyrics so clearly.

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You remember those teeny, tiny little reviews you tend to find in big glossy music mags and dense zines? The 50-or-so word reviews that are all that can be crammed into the space available: dozens of records covered per page. An entire record compressed into less than a square inch. I’ve never really gotten on with that. I’m not a concise person. But sometimes, concision’s a necessity.

Sometimes there’s just not much to say. Staysail, by Gray Young, is an album full of thick, moody and dreamy pop music. It’s very nice, very relaxing, the perfect sort of music to soothe you when you need soothing. Yep, you get all the best tautological nonsense here at NFI. You’re welcome!

First track, ‘Ten Years’, characterises the album’s dreamy take on alternative rock (or, if you prefer, the very very mellow end of post-punk). There’s an occasional faint edge of dischord between the bass and the high-pitched ambient noise that enriches the texture of the song. Coupled with earnest, delicate vocals, the net result is an intoxicatingly warm and soft tune.  The same is true of ‘Inside/Outside’, which from a similarly drawn-out intro builds to a simple guitar hook heavy on delay laid over a driving drum beat and bass riff: the song pushes forward with a gentle relentlessness.

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Some of you may already be familiar with both the band Dads and also the record Brush Your Teeth ;). If, like me, you’re a devotee of various music blogs that push obscure stuff I’d never have heard of outside without the aid of TOS-abusing blogspot and tumblr writers, you may be familiar with twinkly shit. It’s a blog that shares emo music with a fondness for twinkly, picked guitars, hence ‘twinkly shit’.

Dads is two guys collaborating across the US, over the internet, sending compositions back and forth and building them up through a gradual accruing of ideas and contributions (edit: Scott from Dads has gotten in touch to point out that they actually live close together in New Jersey, so I guess I should stop smoking all that delicious crack when doing “research” for my reviews). It’s a neat idea and, no doubt, a fun project. So how does this twinkly shit sound in practice?

What you’ve got here is chiefly mid-pace two-piece emo/indie rock composed of drums, one guitar, one bass and vocals. Opener ‘Dan’s Christopher Walken Impression’ is mostly sung over occasionally elaborate noodling, but periodically the song kicks up with a more throaty, hoarse, uncontrolled sound. Lyrically it’s sweet and unambiguous in tone if not imagery: “When you told me that you loved me, I floated from the stomach out.” More down-to-earth is ‘I Don’t Wanna Fuck With Another Dude’s Snacks’, which lends a sort of stoner air to the whole project purely by dint of its name. The song itself builds in volume about a minute in, and packs a lot of quick, sweet fun into its limited length.

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Del.icio.us links for July 18th through July 24th:

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As long-term readers of NFI will know I’m all about full disclosure (I do try and stop short of TMI, of course). So upfront I’ll admit that being asked to review 1.0 involves a bit of a conflict of interest because Brighton’s Colonics are all good friends of mine. I’ve known all three of them for at least a few years, have worked with several of them and have been to see their current and past musical projects a whole bunch of times.

This is okay, though, firstly because I’m being upfront about it (so if my review is overly glowing you know to mock me for my nepotism), secondly because I’ve been given carte blanche to be as harsh as I like (the exact words were “DO NOT BE GENTLE”, and thirdly because I’m a terrible liar and too honest for my own good anyway.

1.0 is far from a perfect record. The most immediate impression to take from it, as someone who’s seen Colonics live at a bunch of different venues, is that it lacks the impact of their overpowering live sound. » Read the rest of this entry «

Huh. It turns out that Cain Marko is the real name of The X-Men’s Juggernaught. You know, the big dude who is pretty much unstoppable and was unconvincingly played by Vinnie Jones a few years back. It’s not exactly the reference I was expecting from the name of a band trading in big, buzzy anthemic punk rock, but then I guess the names of a lot of bands seem pretty weird if you go digging into their backstory.

Improbable superpowers aside, Cain Marko are yet another band who are all about gruffly-sung melodic punk rock with songs about places and people and, of course, drinking. There’s no shortage of bands doing this sort of thing but fortunately Cain Marko are among the more memorable acts doing a similar sort of thing. If you wanted to stick this shit on a scale then they’re no Big Kids, but they’re easily above average.

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Although extrapolating from anecdotal, personally-experienced trends is pretty much a big no-no, I have to say that of all of the punk and hardcore records I’ve been sent for review so far this year, very few have been lyrically concerned with the world around them except as metaphor. They’ve mostly been introspective rather than outward-looking. That’s no bad thing in itself, but as someone who was drawn to punk rock as a teen because of its fiery, passionate potential to engage with the larger ills of the world, it is a little disappointing.

In contrast to that, the two noise-rock bands who’ve sent me material to review – United Sons of Toil and now Cincinnati’s Mala In Se – have both been lyrically concerned with the world around them. USoT’s Marxist politics came through clearly; Mala In Se, by contrast, focus more on animal rights and environmental themes, but there are songs critical of government corruption and conspiracy present here. I’ve not actually got a hold of the lyrics so I can’t go into them in any more depth, which is a shame, but the music should come foremost in a music review anyway.

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Del.icio.us links for July 11th through July 16th:

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“DON’T TALK TO HIM ABOUT THE WAR!!!”

As the discerning reader might observe from the opening line of this book’s blurb, quoted verbatim above, this is not a novel trading in subtle and elegant prose. No, Major Karnage is a shameless throwback to the days of pulp SF adventure.

Gord Zajac is a fiction editor for the Chiaroscuro webzine and writes for TV, including numerous cartoons for Cartoon Network. These two roles feed into Major Karnage in a very obvious way: the novel benefits from its author’s obvious versed familiarity with genre fiction and it is informed by a cartoonish sensibility. To whit: after a war to end all wars, the multinational Dabney corporation seizes global control of Earth and locks away all its war heroes. Fast forward a few years and the planet is a very different place, with odd flora and fauna spreading and a secret alien invasion underway.

The eponymous Major Karnage is incarcerated in a mental institution alongside a squad of soldiers with whom he shares an intense loyalty. Karnage is a soldier driven by rage and instinct and part of his rehabilitation involves a ‘sanity patch’ at the base of his neck. This device is rigged to explode if Karnage’s temperament escalates too far. This is something that happens a great deal after Karnage’s soldiers are alien-napped and he sets out to defeat the ‘squiggly’ menace from beyond the stars.

Zajac obviously revels in his thoroughly pulpish, tongue-in-cheek narrative and there’s a playful attitude throughout. Unfortunately, whilst humour is a major aspect of the novel, Major Karnage suffers from the problem of not being that funny. Mileage will always vary when it comes to jokes but the novel rarely drew out more than the wry smile of a shared joke. There are also weak long-running jokes, such as the colour-coded ‘sanity levels’ of Karnage’s patch: the penultimate level before his head is blown off being “Strawberry Shortcake”.

Structurally the novel is predictable, clinging to Karnage’s viewpoint with a few brief asides to see minor characters being written off. Whilst Karnage’s motives drive him forward convincingly, he spends a lot of time being knocked out or captured in order to get to where he needs to be. Although the book is pacey I found the first half significantly less interesting than the second, with too much time devoted to getting the plot moving and dropping a few guns on Chekov’s mantlepiece. And one last criticism should surely be pointed at the global dominance of the Dabney corporation: Disney doesn’t reflect the modern zeitgeist of controlling corporate greed any more, surely? We’re past the idea of an entertainment multinational controlling every aspect of our lives; nowadays it’s the internet giants lead by the mighty Google.

I found Major Karnage a moderately enjoyable read and as a first novel it’s a competent enough outing. Unfortunately it’s not a novel I would have persisted with were I not reviewing it. Had it proven funnier, more satirical or more gonzo then my conclusions might be different.

[This review originally published in Vector #265, the critical journal of the British Science Fiction Association. This version of the review was edited by Martin Lewis.]

Has the patch of ground on which country and punk hybrids grow always been this fertile? Perhaps it’s just a side effect of getting deeper into the music reviewing gig, and being sent records by US PRs that I wouldn’t otherwise come across, but it sure seems like there are a lot more of them these days. No bad thing, though, with the earthiness of country rock and the unpretentious passion of punk making good bedfellows.

So Tin Horn Prayer, from Denver, are walking in the mighty footsteps of predecessors like Drag the River and Uncle Tupelo, and from the off you’ll recognise the similarities. A strong sense of nostalgia. Gruff whiskey & cigarette vocals. Themes like self-medicating with alcohol and dealing with growing older. Maybe country is just where US punks start to turn when they want to age a little more gracefully… or at least a little less disgracefully. Or perhaps country music just represents such a monolithic part of American culture that I can’t see it from where I’m standing.

Whatever; it’s good shit, and I dig listening to it. Especially offbeat and tongue-in-cheek tunes like ‘Crime Scene Cleanup’, a song that is essentially a darkly humorous apology to the eponymous cleanup crew for the mess the narrator will have left behind after a messy suicide. As subject matter goes this wins the rare accolade of being something I’ve never heard before. The music’s jaunty and a lot of fun, too; well-matched to the lyrical black humour.

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