Here’s a band we’re all too old to get nostalgic about…
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[6.43]
Brad Shoup: My gut told me the title is a riff on the golden calf, but messageboard scuttle pegs it as a reference to a bullfighting documentary. Guess I’ve been checked out of CCM longer than these guys. Nice to see they’ve copped a bit of that mordant-Maynard approach, especially on the throaty yelp of the chorus. It slams, yet I remain unmoved. Perhaps the cage-rattling is a poor mechanism for eternity-pointing, or I’ve forgotten how to identify a good riff-delivery system.
[6]
Alfred Soto: These bros scored their highest debut a few months ago and good for them. They’ve got a solid rhythmic and dynamic sense and the lyrics when intelligible are intelligible. Let’s hope Steve Albini stays the hell away.
[7]
Anthony Easton: Anglo American louche, floating somewhere between the 70s and the 90s, grinding where it needs to, loud where it isn’t grinding, with just the right touch of Cookie Monster. Could stand to have a bit more of a quiet middle (in the Pixies school) but the talking-instead-of-singing near the end makes up for that.
[8]
Iain Mew: That dirty shuffle beat and whine combo of the first verse reminds me so much of something which I’ve been trying to place all evening but haven’t managed to. Luckily I don’t have to think about it for long each time because they have another five different tones of riffing and solo-ing to work their way through. I wouldn’t exactly call this innovative, but I appreciate how fresh it keeps sounding even when I don’t really get the chorus (singer or what’s sung).
[6]
Katherine St Asaph: Here’s a voice that can make a song: sneering and gripping soaked in reverb, straining against a track just as murky. Shame about the lyrical bull.
[6]
Edward Okulicz: Gotta admit I’m a sucker for propulsive rock bands who would sound great over a montage of full-body sporting collisions. Their previous single “Face to the Floor” would be even better for this purpose, but “Hats” has a pleasing mix of burbling menace in the verses with taut riffs that are like a succession of light punches to the face — not overwhelming at first, but impressive over four minutes. Shows there’s a lot of life left in the brooding verse/loud chorus/yowling bloke template.
[8]
Josh Langhoff: The roiling pride of Grayslake, IL! Once on my way home from work I pulled into the parking lot of the Grayslake Area Public Library in search of adventure and CDs to dub, and — no lie — Alvin Lucier’s “I Am Sitting in a Room” came on the radio. (WNUR, the Northwestern station.) Not something you hear every day, not something I’d ever heard before; I was transfixed. Is it possible for someone’s utter lack of mystery to render them more mysterious? Because there’s no mystery to the Lucier. He explains what he’s doing and he does it, but there’s wonder in realizing that such an artifact exists and is being broadcast to charming tree-lined suburbs, themselves utterly lacking mystery — OR ARE THEY? When I hear Chevelle, for some reason I want to know everything about them: whether they ever played the library, how they initially hooked up with Steve Taylor’s label and Steve Albini’s studio, why their fans like them, what the hell this inane song is about, how hard they have to work at writing incomprehensible lyrics, whether they’ve considered a go-go remix of this song like Filter did with “Hey Man, Nice Shot”. Because really, that’d help.
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