Beat Pyramid
These New Puritans
Domino, 2008
2 stars
Hold the phone, it's another bunch of skinny kids, barely out of high-school, making angular dance-punk under an intelligent-sounding name. A quick scan of dictionary.com tells me that a Puritan is "a person who is strict and disapproves of many kinds of enjoyment", and I'd say they're right on the money, because I'm not really enjoying this CD at all. I mean, it's an interesting idea - mixing dance beats, layered vocals and post-punk guitars - but between Bloc Party and Forward Russia it's already been done, and done better. Maybe I'm just getting old though ... "Damn kids and their new-fangled rock-n-roll music", sheesh, I'm starting to sound like my dad.
Artwork: B
Published in mX, Thursday 24 January 2008.
Thursday, January 24, 2008
What's Old Is New
Thursday, January 17, 2008
Get Messy
Spiderman of the Rings
Dan Deacon
Mistletone, 2007
3.5 stars
Mistletone have had this release up their sleeves for a few months now, but with Mr Deacon’s Australian tour imminent, it’s time to drag it back off the shelf. Dan Deacon is a Baltimore-based electronic musician, specialising in bending old Casio beats and samples, manipulating his own voice, and generally making a mess of himself in the best possible way.
Artwork: B-
Published in mX, Thursday 17 January 2007.
Thursday, January 10, 2008
Blown Circuits
Load Blown
Black Dice
Paw Tracks, 2007
4 stars
Black Dice have been on a decade-long crusade into the depths of noise-rock, but by their own standards Load Blown might as well be a pop album. Tribal beats fashioned out of bent computer static collide with warped samples, guitar strums and broken synthesiser effects – and it sounds incredible. A number of the tracks here were recorded for other releases, but they combine to form an album that is more varied, wide-reaching and accessible than anything they’ve done before, and there’s an energy to it that you just can’t help but plug in to.
Artwork: A+
Published in mX, Thursday 10 January 2008.
