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Bottle
Up and Explode
By
John Brodeur
Liam
Finn
I’ll
Be Lightning (Yep Roc)
When children of successful rock musicians choose to venture
into the family business, the results are, at best, mixed.
For every Sean Lennon, there’s a Kelly Osbourne. (Can’t wait
to hear Coco Hayley Gordon Moore’s band, though.) So it was
with some trepidation that I ventured to a showcase performance
by Liam Finn, son of Crowded House/Split Enz leader Neil Finn,
a few months back in Manhattan. Word was going around that
the young Finn had a great live show, but I heard that same
thing before seeing Ben Taylor (James’ kid), and I’d give
anything to get back that hour of my life.
Liam Finn rocked my ass.
See, Finn is young enough, and of the right pedigree (read:
His dad isn’t Ozzy), to have steered clear of the trappings
and expectations associated with some of his peers. In concert,
he’s a one-man band, looping his guitar parts with one of
those sampler thingys, singing his ass off, and bashing away
at the drums like a Muppet. It’s manic, primal energy, channeled
through some nifty, at times baroque, pop songcraft. His approach
is that of one who simply loves music and enjoys performing
it—as he sings on a song from his debut recording, I’ll
Be Lightning, “All I know is music moves my feet.”
That’s all you need to know to enjoy Lightning. Recorded,
produced and mixed by Finn (the elder Finn is among the very
few guest musicians here) in New Zealand, this is a strong
and, at times, strikingly personal debut, personal in the
sense that you can practically see him running around the
studio between the tape machine and the drum kit, trying out
idea after idea. There’s a DIY aesthetic in the recording
style that recalls some early Beck recordings or the late
Elliott Smith’s From a Basement on the Hill.
Smith’s Basement a fine touchstone for Lightning,
actually, as Lightning matches Finn’s vulnerable tenor
(he does, indeed, sound a bit like his father) to arrangements
that favor overdriven bass guitar and drums, gorgeous vocal
layering, and a young man’s mind full of big ideas. A fine
example is “Second Chance,” where a sped-up drum loop and
vibrato guitar lick build anticipation until the chorus, where
the live drums explode in a 200 BPM flurry, Finn singing “Don’t
forget me when you grow old” in interweaving two-part harmony.
It’s an exciting listen. Equally exciting is the penultimate
track, “Wide Awake on the Voyage Home,” which revels in the
same joy of release, only at a slower pace.
So the kid’s got talent, and plenty of ideas. I’d love to
see what he could do with a real recording budget, but on
I’ll Be Lightning, he does just fine on his own.
Tunng
Good
Arrows (Thrill Jockey)
Tunng are a difficult band to describe, but for the best possible
reasons. They have diverse inclinations, all of which they
embrace on Good Arrows, their third album. Their quiet
power is due to the fact that they incorporate that diversity
into one organic whole. There’s not a hint of utilizing a
particular genre, sound, or arrangement flourish in order
to attract attention by distracting or befuddling a listener.
Indeed, Tunng’s mix of folk, ethnic, soundtrack, experimental
rock forms, psychedelia and more, is utterly friendly: It’s
as if they’ve invited all their influences to a costume party
and no one’s exactly as they appear to be, but everyone’s
having a rollicking good time. There’s a giddy sense of surprise
as a voice darts in or a chorus amasses, or a bit of studio
gadgetry brings in an instrument, tosses another out, and
then sprinkles some bubbly sounds across the top of it all
just because it’s right. The singalong quality of the songs
creates alluring contrasts as semi-inscrutable (or perhaps
slowly unfolding) poetics are wedded to melodies that sound
as natural and familiar as “Happy Birthday.”
—David
Greenberger
Dillinger
Escape Plan
Ire
Works (Relapse)
Dillinger Escape Plan have garnered a reputation as virtuosic
risk-takers whose jazz-inspired metalcore is unparalleled
in their genre. On Ire Works, DEP take a million steps backward.
Unlike the savagely technical Calculating Infinity or their
progressive masterpiece Miss Machine, Ire Works finds the
band bogged down in a muck of cliché and posturing. The band
got their first taste of commercial viability in 2001 when
Greg Puciato brought his Mike Patton-inspired vocal talent
to the fold. But the commercially inspired ideas on Ire Works
never come together, and they just fuck up perfectly adequate
metalcore songs.
On Miss Machine, grand string sections and spectacular
choruses would take over a song; on Ire Works, wannabe
Aphex Twin noise leads to nothing. Electronics clink alongside
chugga-chugga riffs; songs fall apart before they even begin;
Puciato gives a go at the big chorus, but falls short. And
his lyrics are getting to be burdensome—misogynistic, you-will-get-what-you-deserve-rants
about women who did him wrong make up Puciato’s limited lyrical
range.
On “Milk Lizard,” DEP shamefully ape the less-inspired, but
apparently more commercially viable, style of Every Time I
Die. On “Black Bubblegum,” they combine a grating riff with
a chorus that is sugar-pop sweet—it’s as close as the band
have ever come to writing a pop single. And yet the song lacks
what no other Dillinger song really ever has lacked: competent
musicianship. It’s formulaic, and feels patched together from
tossed-aside riffs.
Everything on Ire Works feels rushed, pushed into a
gruff, bar-band aesthetic that does not work for a group of
musicians who used to play jazz scales with one hand tied
behind their backs. Some people may say that critics of Ire
Works just don’t get it. Unfortunately I think the people
who have a problem with Ire Works do get it, and they
see a band so torn in multiple directions that they just don’t
know what to do with themselves anymore.
People have called Dillinger Escape Plan the “Radiohead of
metal” because they are willing to experiment, but on Ire
Works, the band clearly cannot reconcile their lust for
experimentation with what they feel they owe their past, and
what they owe to their inspirations. The result is simply
a mess.
—David
King
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