Will the lumbering, frayed Golem that is this take on alternative guitar rock stay upright longer than the odd month or two?
Will the lumbering, frayed Golem that is this take on alternative guitar rock stay upright longer than the odd month or two?
(Jagjaguwar) http://www.konkurrent.nl
You’ve heard all of this before. All of it. A million times. And, just like death and taxes, if there is surety in this life, it is that you will hear more records like this Viet Cong record before you pop your clogs. And that’s fine if they sound like this Viet Cong record. Because what we must remember is that independent rock and roll is sitting stone cold on a slab in a dank basement; wired up to the generator and waiting for another plucky cove to flick the switch and revive the monster. This is one of the better efforts. And in places it’s great.
Those crashing clanging, growling and rasping guitars pitched at that attractive middle range, powering tracks like and nodding to a list of references as long as your arm. It matters not, sneer if you will that Bernard Sumner should sue; or that obscure in excelsis bands like Lansing Dreiden rapped out stuff like Pointless Exercise or Continental Shelf over a decade previous. It matters not. And whether you can hear stuff from Cope floating around in Newspaper Spoons, or a million nuggets of Nuggets in the deadpan vocals of March of Progress (Todd Rundgren anyone?), be glad of it. GLAD. You should get over yourself and stop acting like a spare prick at an orgy. You will love and play it over and over because it’s satisfying. Really satisfying.
Will the lumbering, frayed Golem that is this take on alternative guitar rock stay upright longer than the odd month or two? Will we stop playing this record (and especially the fraught closing blowout of Death) with such pop-eyed greed, a listening experience that resembles nothing less than a stuff-your-face session at your local processed burger & fries assembly point? Time will tell. For now, revel in this record like a warm bath.