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 It’s
Really Complicated
By
David King
Art Brut
It’s
a Bit Complicated (Downtown)
Friends, there is good news from Britain: Art Brut are nicht
tot! In love with pop rock, in love with love (and falling
in and out of it), lead singer Eddie Argos kicks things off
with a smarmy apology: “I know I shouldn’t/Is it so wrong/To
break from a kiss to turn up a pop song?” It’s a Bit Complicated
does not equal the pure fun of the band’s debut Bang Bang
Rock n Roll. That’s not to say it isn’t a hoot—it’s just
that the irreverent joy quotient has been toned down a bit
by Argos’ anxiety. Art Brut still sound like your little brothers’
Pixie tribute band with a sarcastic Brit for a lead singer.
It sounds like they’ve started to worry about their chops
and are trying to make things complicated. But really, why
bother? The result is that the album is a bit drier
and a tad more serious in places, musically as well as lyrically.
And if Argos seems apologetic in tone, it is because he is
constantly apologizing—for his accent, his lack of commitment,
his bad make-out etiquette. In fact, It’s a Bit Complicated
could be the 21st-century version of Weezer’s Pinkerton.
On “St. Pauli,” it sounds like the band might be back to their
total irreverence with Argos shouting, “Punk rock ist nicht
tot!,” but then he apologizes: “Sorry if my accent’s flawed/I
learned my German from a 7-inch record.” Eddie should get
over his hang-ups, because despite all his apologies, It’s
a Bit Complicated is the album of the summer.
 |
 Job
for a Cowboy
Genesis
(Metal Blade)
MySpace has done some funny things. It has reduced friendship
to a series of button clicks, made cheap hookups easier than
hanging out on Pearl Street for 20 minutes, and helped mascara-wearing
emo kids get over their fear of human interaction. But the
success of Internet darlings Job for a Cowboy’s debut full-length
has topped all MySpace’s previous odd accomplishments. The
band caused a stir with their EP, Doom, because, um.
. . . well, I don’t know why. The EP was a collection of amateurish
metalcore with a singer who could squeal like a pig. The album
is certainly tighter musically, featuring adequately performed
death metal with a singer of limited range who no longer squeals
very much. (Evil pig noises scare Hot Topic kids.) Job for
a Cowboy blur the lines of metalcore and wind up with something
very average. But at least those metal kids who hang at the
mall have a reason to buy new shirts: Slipknot and Killswitch
Engage have been replaced by Job for a Cowboy.
 The
Clay People
Waking
the Dead (Overit)
To call Waking the Dead a transitional album for the
Clay People would be an understatement. After years of inactivity,
the Clay People have returned, looking for a musical home.
For the first eight tracks, the band struggle to find their
proper place. They successfully flirt with David Bowie, the
Beatles and, unfortunately, with Nickelback. It isn’t until
later in the album that they find themselves. But that’s OK—there
are 15 tracks on the album. The haunting “Never Give Up” goes
from spooky to powerful when the chorus opens up with its
dense, ringing chords long enough to give singer Dan Neet
a chance to do what he does best: devour the track with his
booming, operatic voice. That is when the album truly starts.
The rest of it takes a more cohesive tone, with an interesting,
My Bloody Valentine-inspired sound, fleshed out with thick,
fuzzy chords and backed by atmospheric flourishes and precise
drumming, which provide a proper base for Neet’s gargantuan
voice. If the second half of Waking the Dead represents
the sound of the new Clay People, I am stoked and would politely
like to ask them to get their asses back in the studio.
|
 Poison
the Well
Versions
(Ferret)
In Chuck Palahniuk’s Lullaby, the narrator—driven a
bit crazy by a culling song that lets him will people to death,
and by his neighbor’s rattling stereo and the booming bass
of passing traffic—talks about a coming sound war, an escalation
of sound where, eventually, noise will become lethal and even
outlawed in a world in which people fret about hearing things
just as much as they fret about disease. Poison the Well reached
the peak in the metalcore sound war with their last album,
the major-label release You Come Before You. In fact,
their last album was so unnecessarily harsh and without direction
that it almost killed me. Poison the Well since have exited
the metalcore arms race and the world of major labels, and
on Versions, they instead spend their time on songwriting
and atmospherics. Since they’ve always produced quirky, spazzy,
emotional metalcore, I expected a more emotionally satisfying
and diverse result from Versions. Instead, what they
deliver is bleak, desolate, cold and unchanging: clanging
chords like icicles breaking against brass, slide guitars
and banjos that sound like vultures circling lead singer Jeffrey
Moreira as he issues his piteous screams. Poison the Well
now use despair as a weapon. And again, I feel lucky to have
escaped with my life.
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