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 Reuse/Recycle
By
David King
How
to Destroy Angels
How
to Destroy Angels
How
do you feel about Nine Inch Nails karaoke? Are you particularly
attached to Trent Reznor’s broken wail, his sinister hiss?
Your answers to these questions could very well determine
if you can stomach the new EP by Reznor’s new project,
How to Destroy Angels, the band fronted by his new wife,
West Indian Girl lead singer Mariqueen Maandig. Reznor may
have retired NIN as a touring act and professed a desire to
lose the trappings that band bring with them, but this release
does little to separate him from his past work.
Musically, the six tracks (released for free on the band’s
Web site) sound like something Reznor was brewing for the
next proper NIN release—he seems to have penned a version
of every one of his past hits for his wife to meekly coo over.
Maandiq’s voice isn’t exactly terrible, but it isn’t really
much of anything. And the lyrics sound suspiciously like Reznor’s:
Themes present in his last few recordings (irrelevance, the
desire to disappear, repetition) are all here, along with
his vocal patterns. Absent are his despair, rage, and his
newfound, self-aware goofiness. Instead, Maandig drones on,
seemingly afraid to use her voice. Reznor even sings backup
on tracks like “BBB” (short for “Big Black Boots”), and when
he does, his whispers overwhelm Maandig’s slight vocals.
The “Closer”-like thump on “BBB” sounds eerily familiar to
work by KMFDM, another industrial guitar band who use female
singers to add flair (and have sung about boots before). Opener
“The Space in Between” and closer “A Drowning” both sound
like Reznor’s attempts on recent albums to remake “Hurt.”
Some of the key work is too close for comfort to Year Zero’s
“In This Twilight” and The Fragile’s “Underneath It
All.” Highlight track “Fur-Lined” is a direct sequel to NIN’s
“Only”: A familiar, robotic disco break opens the track, creaking
synths follow up, and then the jagged guitar breaks set things
loose. Finally, some awesome zombie-movie moog synths creep
in and Reznor gets what he wanted: a little mystery, a little
sexiness. But the moment is fleeting.
The only discernible difference between How to Destroy
Angels and later NIN releases is that the production is
immaculate. All sorts of cool noises spew forth, gnawing at
your ears. It sounds like Reznor cares again—he is
producing for his wife, after all. But it’s surprising Reznor
even bothered to give up vocal duties, as Maandiq’s quiet
vocals are processed into oblivion. On “Fur-Lined,” she sings,
“Everything is echoing/Is this really happening?” Sound like
Reznor? It does to me, but (excuse the pun) without teeth.
Phyllis
Chen
UnCaged
Toy Piano
Toy
pianos conjure such a specific sound in our minds that it’s
easy to forget that more can be done with them than improvisational
childhood pounding. The title of Phyllis Chen’s debut is a
sly reference to John Cage, whose 1948 “Suite for Toy Piano”
is the centerpiece of this set. It was 50 years after Cage’s
piece that Margaret Leng Tan’s toy-piano works appeared, bringing
the suitcase-sized instrument back to the concert stage. (During
those barren intervening decades, the band NRBQ kept the banner
flying, utilizing a toy piano for a delightful solo on their
1972 Scraps album.)
Chen’s album is remarkably varied, an issue that she dealt
with both in terms of the compositions she played and the
manner in which they were recorded. The instrument’s microtonal
quivers shimmer, but there’s also a surprising resonance in
the lower register. Cage’s five-part suite embraces the childlike
character associated with the toy piano, starting off with
repetitive scale-like phrases. From there it becomes more
purposely angular, evoking a sort of passage from the simple
world of a child into the daunting complexities of adulthood.
Several pieces judiciously employ an additional sound source
or two. Julia Wolfe’s “East Broadway” has a rhythm bed created
on a toy boombox, while Chen’s own “Memoirist” finds her playing
a music box, bowls, and a frying pan.
On UnCaged Toy Piano, Phyllis Chen’s modernist inclinations
come across as reasurringly traditional. She’s managed the
rare feat of being both daring and friendly.
—David
Greenberger
Deftones
Diamond
Eyes
If
you have even a fleeting interest in the Deftones, you probably
know their album White Pony. The single “Change (In
the House of Flies)” dominated rock radio, but the true gems
of the disc were too raucous and artsy (in a nu-metal way)
for radio play. It seems that perhaps the Deftones were relying
on that fact when they recorded Diamond Eyes because
the album sounds like a song-by-song re-creation of their
breakthrough disc, despite one important fact: they didn’t
come up with a sequel to their radio smash. For instance,
vocalist Chino Moreno’s vocal pattern on the raging “Royal”
directly recalls his vocals on White Pony track “Korea.”
But the mimicry here isn’t actually a bad thing. For the first
time in years, the Deftones have delivered a record that is
worth listening to in its entirety. And unlike on White
Pony, where the band’s constant struggle with heavy and
light gave in to the lighter side of things, on Diamond
Eyes the band thrash and chug while delivering dark and
dreamy compositions. It’s sort of like space rock for metalheads.
The title cut features a soaring chorus reminiscent of “Change,”
but it’s backed up with searing guitars. “Have You Seen the
Butcher” has a bluesy, sleazy swagger that hits like “Passenger”
(Moreno’s White Pony duet with Tool’s Maynard James
Keenan) combined with a track by the Black Keys. The band
have managed to pay tribute to their disparate influences—the
atmospheric gloom of Mogwai, the undulating, polyrhythmic
thrash of Meshuggah—while finally coming to terms with themselves.
Hopefully, on their next disc, the band will be able to summon
this confidence while delivering something new.
—David
King
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