Hair bands and heavy metal were as much a staple of the 80s/90s teens as the Beatles were to our parents, bad taste in some cases being requisite, yes, but we also experienced the iconic–give it up for Guns-n-Roses. The lesser forms certainly had something of a B-rated cult music following, but still, one must pay tribute to the lesser so rampant in our youth, if not for nostalgia then for the bevy of comical material and all those late night roller-skating birthday parties, disco balls casting moonlight and stars on the wood, hand-holding with the drum and guitar beats of Poison, White Snake…
I can still remember the rumors flying about Ozzy Osbourne and the bat head biting incident and how it struck fear in the girls, made the boys sneer, it was something of a rock horror. Having never attended a rock horror show–I will admit to being a little scared and squeamish–I can’t speak for the actuality of the bat head being real or not, though, I had friends who swore it was. I do remember thinking it wasn’t so different than Alice Cooper for my mother, and how much I liked Alice Cooper. The kids in high school, who followed this form of music, carried it around with them like a shroud, shield and sword. It seemed to somehow make them more dangerous, just listening and preferring such music, a sad and often unjustified prejudice, but to which so many of us subscribed. It might be suggested some of the heavy metal kids knew the effect of their clothing and musical preferences. It yielded the aura of safe space, heavy metal, bubble wrap around them. One could not blame a teenager for hiding in such space, safe distance from other cliques being a rich commodity in high school.
“It probably seemed like a good idea at the time for the members of the British glam-metal band Wrathchild to be so peacockishly come-hither on the cover of their 1984 album ‘Stakk Attakk.’ With songs like “Trash Queen” and “Too Wild to Tame,” no doubt they took pride in their toweringly teased locks, baby-doll lips and strappy S-and-M gear. But nearly 30 years later the image doesn’t quite scream Beasts of Metal. It more whispers, Lady Clown” (A Look at Bad Heavy-Metal Album Cover Art – NYTimes.com).
To my surprise, I eventually dated a boy who was into heavy metal, Metallica being his favorite, but also well-steeped in Cooper, Osbourne, some of the alternative heavy bands, Nine Inch Nails and Alice in Chains, which I too preferred, still do. And he was one of the sweetest, most gentle boys I’ve ever known. The music, for him, wasn’t a violence or means toward violence, it was a release, a place to unwind and put down the day, I think. I came to better understand the lure of heavy metal and the nuances through him. I have since regarded any new aesthetic with more openness. I’m thankful for that.
As comical and hairy as some of these bands may have been, there were great artists, too, and some of them have been as much a part of a broader arts presence nationally and internationally as the “higher,” Julliard forms. I like to think there are spaces for all of them and, in some very special cases, genius in the fusions. Rage Against the Machine, perhaps being one of my favorite examples. And so I’ll leave you with a little Rage now. Happy Easter, everyone. Rock on. Rock right.
Before this review goes any further, let’s reflect: It’s February, 2013. After years of hype, rumors, heartbreak, internet hints and untimely server crashes, you just opened a review of a new My Bloody Valentine album.
Now that’s unbelievable!
Kevin Shields, the mercurial mastermind behind My Bloody Valentine had left a generation of obsessive fans holding their collective breath, wondering if any new MBV music would ever see the light of day, well the wondering is over. The way it went down is now part of the legend. The band pulled a savvy marketing technique that’s becoming more and more common: the sudden announcement. Similar to Radiohead’s In Rainbows initial suprise release, out of nowhere on Saturday night they announced that they were dropping MBV, their first new album in almost 22 years, on their website. Millions gave up their Saturday night plans. #MBV took over twitter and eventually outdid the Superbowl hashtag. Apparently the internet is full of aging music nerds and their offspring who share the same interests and taste in music. This is a comforting thought.
However, when the album finally did appear to download, just before midnight on Saturday, the band’s redesigned website immediately and repeatedly crashed, or refused to accept payment, causing an enterprising person in Indiana to try to involve the US president himself. “The My Bloody Valentine website isn’t working and there’s a new record on it,” read a petition filed on the White House website. “We the people hereby petition the Obama administration to make it work again.”
When the website finally started uploading those magical mp3’s to everyone in the wee hours of Sunday morning, the real challenge began. Tackling the follow-up to the band’s critically beloved, impossibly unique masterpiece, 1991’s Loveless—A landmark achievement that: cemented the shoegaze tag in the musical parlance of our times; birthed the phrase “swirling guitars” from Kevin Shields’ buzzing, sawing, shrieking, reverb-drenched, eerily tremolo-ed Fender Jazzmaster; showed young musicians how to not utilize a recording budget after nearly sending the band’s label, Creation Records, into bankruptcy; and oh yes, once stood as the band’s final—and (to many) perfect—musical statement. It would be impossible for Shields and Co. to outdo Loveless. Thankfully to their credit, MBV doesn’t try to do that. An album like Loveless is a once in a career accomplishment; MBV sounds like Kevin Shields has accepted this fact while maintaining
At the end of the day, Shields promised us a new My Bloody Valentine album, and finally, we got one. Although he might have been off by a few days (or years, depending on how you look at it), it’s incredible that a band so removed from its definitive statement has released something so true to what it set out to do. My Bloody Valentine successfully followed up a decades-old classic with MBV, an album that stands as confidently, beautifully and masterfully composed as its predecessor. And if you had any questions about it being over-hyped, remember this: Shields might not be great with dates or calendars, but a quick blast on a home stereo will prove he’s unbeatable in the studio.
MBV, track by track: MBV is a three part act: there’s the classic beginning which starts out with the swirling guitar fuzz and melodic beauty one would expect from a Post-Loveless My Bloody Valentine, the surprisingly surprisingly mellow and dare i say danceable interior, and the third act, a completely futuristic, alien sounding sonic head trip , most likely the drum and bass influenced helicopter orgasm section Kevin Shields has mentioned in rare interviews.
Act I: The Classics
She Found Now
This begins the album off where Loveless ended. No volume could be appropriate or do it justice. Muscular without being outright industrial, it harnesses My Bloody Valentine’s natural knack for hiding melodies under so much hopeful haze. Drums here keep a pulse and do nothing more. This is a perfect beginning. Simple yet strong this is My Bloody Valentine’s legacy fulfilled.
Only Tomorrow
“Only Tomorrow” continues down this path. Compared to “She Found Now” it turns up the fuzz a little bit. Yes it is large but manages to feel somewhat touchable. The drums are more prominent. Parts of the distortion feel completely satisfying like “Thank Goodness You’re Here”. Noise continues into the third track.
Who Sees You
This is one of the best, most vicseral tracks on the album. This in person would mean an extremely physical experience. Listening to it on anything feels overwhelming. Almost industrial in nature My Bloody Valentine sounds completely foreign. Few bands could pull this sort of thing off. Machine music as run by humans would be a good way of describing it.
Act II: The Cool Down
Is This and Yes
Oh cool they threw in a Stereolab track. That was nice of them. Now this makes sense why they’d throw this in after the previous three (heavier) tracks. Yet it goes on too long to be considered an interlude. Guitars are hidden. A purely keyboard-reliant My Bloody Valentine is the result. Enjoyable but different from what they’ve done in the past.
If I Am
Continuing with the lighter touch for the sweet center of the album, they at least bring the guitars back. Now the drums are more prominent too. Still the keyboard is in the background keeping track of everything. It is strange hearing the keyboard get that much attention. Still it delivers on being a mellower track with a nice Beach Boysish melody and finishes with a great psychedelic outro.
New You
Debuted at a recent London show this track was originally known as “Rough Song”. MBV pivots on “New You” in what has to be the clearest and catchiest song they’ve ever put to tape. The general opinion seems to be that it’s one of the album’s strongest. There’s no denying that it’s immediately satisfying and totally hummable. Established and neophyte remixers will no doubt stumble over themselves to drop the first remix of the track.
Act III: Drum and Bass
In Another Way
Gnarled guitars begin. The amount of noise overwhelms at first. Drums are sped up. This is one of the three songs with a more drum and bass inspired rhythm. What makes this the best of the drum and bass inspired is their use of multiple patterns. Occasionally everything syncs up. Every time that happens it is fantastic. My Bloody Valentine runs wild on this one. It is the freest and most ambitious moment on the record.
Nothing Is
Five seconds of eerie silence and then, bam!! we’re confronted with the nastiest sounding song on the album: a harsh, saw-toothed riff splutters into life mid-flow, out of nowhere, and continues in the same vein for the next three-and-a-half-minutes. “Any minute now,” you think. “Any minute now this great, stomping build is going to detonate into something entirely unexpected.” It doesn’t, and it’s all the greater for it: just a no-frills assault on the senses that ratchets up the tension without ever giving you the rush of release, and instead just actively takes the air out of the balloon of your expectations.
Wonder 2
Kevin Shields’ crowning achievement on MBV, and the proof that MBV is still relevant is unquestionably “Wonder 2”. The track is an amalgamation of some of the most vigorous elements in the band’s catalog – Ó Cíosóig’s crashing percussion on “What You Want”, Butcher and Shields’ twin crushing guitars on “Only Shallow”, the so-called “holocaust section” of “You Made Me Realise” – into six furious minutes of melodic cacophony. It’s a perfect ending to an album that builds in tension as it unfolds its layers slowly, and if they ever get tired of closing shows with the indescribable monolith that is “You Made Me Realise”, “wonder 2″ would handily fill that slot. While it’s not too surprising that a MBV album closes with a song that sounds like a whale crying into a reverb-drenched subway tunnel, it’s a perfect way for Shields to show that for all of the album’s time spent in development hell, he knows what elements of his signature sound to not mess with, and that m b v is truly the singular work of the Irish visionary who disappeared into his own myth in 1992.
Medium Cool takes its name from the 1969 film titled Medium Cool by Haskell Wexler, notable for its cinema vérité technique and fictional/non-fictional content.
D. J. Uncle Matt was born and raised in L.A., where his mother introduced him to the Punk scene and L.A. music and arts scene. Matt studied film at the University of Oregon and in Barcelona, where he taught English and lived the expatriate life. He has written, produced, filmed and/or directed feature films, shorts, music videos, and worked as assistant camera on Sick: The Life & Death of Bob Flanagan, Supermasochist, a Sundance Film Festival, Berlin Film Festival, and L.A. Film Festival awards winning documentary. Matt lives in Washington D.C., where he is a filmmaker/screenwriter and hosts the bi-weekly radio show, Uncle Matt’s Two-Hour Shower.
As soon as a band is labeled “psychedelic” they are thereafter branded, fairly or not, with a certain set of characteristics. The band will have meandering, dreamlike song arrangements. There will likely be some found-sound. Layers upon layers of feedback will be employed. Smoking Pot will be encouraged, and a sitar will find its way into the mix somehow. These may indeed be applicable to the majority of psychedelic bands but it is an unfortunate lens through which to analyze psychedelic music. The reason is that this perspective immediately affiliates the music with laziness, apathy, and general disengagement when in fact the best psychedelic music has a pervasive sense of inventiveness and immediacy. The biggest names of 60′s and 70’s Psychedelia (Hendrix, Pink Floyd, post-acid Beatles, The Byrds) weren’t revered solely because they were good fodder for hallucinogenics. Rather, they were notable for their need to push the boundaries of sound engineering, subvert typical pop arrangements, and generally keep the listener in a state of heightened awareness. So it is fitting then that Kevin Parker’s excellent take on psychedelic rock music — which reaches its apex on Lonerism — is as much about borrowing from his predecessors as it is about discovering something fresh.
From his isolated home of Perth, Parker has been a key component of brain-tingling psych-rock projects both within Australia and abroad. He played drums on the Mink Mussel Creek and Pond records and his role in Melody’s Echo Chamber’s debut is largely responsible for its blistering psych-pop aesthetic. His most focused work, however, has always been with Tame Impala. A brainchild of his bedroom tinkering, Tame Impala is at its core a musical outgrowth of the blissful isolation that fills Parker’s life. He has noted that Lonerism is rooted in the “process of discovering that it’s in your blood to be wandering around on the outside of everything.” Yet, he notes that accepting that is not necessarily a negative; it is more like “how great is this? I’m alone!” This individualist foundation contributes to Lonerism in almost every respect. On the production side, Parker wrote and recorded the album entirely by himself. He is a self-proclaimed effects fanatic, and his ability to craft everything from warm, crunchy guitar sounds to kaleidoscopic vocal sequences is a rarity of the millennial generation. Substantively, the lyrics of the album are constantly delving into themes of isolation, sequestration and self-imposed confinement. Even the album cover can’t be misinterpreted. It’s a photo taken by Parker as he stands outside the Luxembourg Gardens in Paris looking through the iron bars.
Lonerism is derived from the concept of being alone but, after the first track, it is clear that the sounds that branch out from that focal point are stunningly expansive. “Gotta Be Above It” is an aural smorgasbord. The self-conscious mantra pants softly in the background; a driving drum beat with a distinctly live feel starts the track’s propulsion; the synths sprawl out in every direction like fire catching paper; and finally Parker’s sunshine voice swirls its way into the arrangement. All of the track’s psychedelic quarks are adeptly executed but it works (especially as an opener) because of the multi-tiered song structure that slowly eats its way inside the listener’s mind. It is immediately reorienting. You might have been initially been worlds away from what Parker is trying to do, but after “Gotta Be Above It” you are firmly hooked in. Or you aren’t, and you probably aren’t reading this anymore.
While 2010’s Innerspeaker, Tame Impala’s first record, was for the most part an edgier, rawer and heavier rock record, Lonerism fully embraces bubbly pop melodies that often incorporate a deeper array of accompanying instrumentation. “Apocalypse Dreams” is essentially bubblegum pop wrapped up in a cloud of fuzzy psychedelia. It is by no means a simple verse-chorus arrangement — it is a patchwork of different segments that flow with a beautiful lack of direction – but its nevertheless a bright, feel-good melody. “Feels Like We Only Go Backwards” is the kind of song a whole generation of potheads will fall in love to. It is in many ways heartbreaking but there are some tender lines (“I know that you think you sound silly when you call my name/ but I hear it inside my head all day”) and Parker’s earnest sentimentality seeps out through the sun-drenched synths. “Why Won’t They Talk to Me”’s melody sports a joyous sheen and the lyric “whoopsy-daisy” even works its way into the chorus. What’s important though is that the full line is “destined to be lonely old me, whoopsy-daisy, thought I was happy.” This juxtaposition of painful words and carefree sounds is constant throughout Lonerism.
From the very first song Parker’s stories follow the decree that he has to “bide [his] time as a face in the crowd.” What is odd is that outside of his own head Parker is arguably the most well-regarded figure in modern Australian rock music. He headlines major events in his home country and has an intense fan base around the world. However, it is possible that all of this exposure has only heightened his need to be insular. His music seems to be a form of self-medication. He sequesters himself from everything around him and finds some peace in quiet isolation. On “Apocalypse Dreams” he sings “everything is changing/ and there’s nothing I can do/ my world is turning pages/ while I’m just sitting here.” Other songs touch on how he is struggling to stay the same but everyone expects him to become an entirely new person. That person is the subject of “Elephant.” One of the years best single tracks It’s a character that is painted with a mixture of awe and disdain, as the subject exudes confidence and “shakes his grey trunk for the hell of it.” Further, in one of the best song lines of the year, Parker notes that “he pulled the mirrors off his Cadillac, because he doesn’t like it looking like he looks back.” This is the opposite of the person who is exposed in Parker’s songs – a loner that often embraces his loneliness.
Parker’s talent with sound manipulation is evident not only during his hyper-psychedelic fits but also in the near perfect guitar and synth sounds he is able to produce. Near the end of “Endors Toi” a distorted guitar line rears its head and, although it is short lived, its phenomenal crunchiness leaves a deep impression. “Mind Mischief” starts off with a laid-back groove of a guitar riff. The drums follow all fidgety ala Tomorrow Never Knows. Bass and vocals enter almost simultaneously after a brief intro. A melodic sounding bass sliding in every direction accompanies the airy Lennonesque vocals perfectly. Now enters a dreamy, bleeding synth that carries on just long enough to enter back into the groove that started all of this beautiful chaos. Ultimately, Lonerism is more fully realized than Innerspeaker, which may have resulted in some unpredictable obscurity being thrown by the wayside.
Parker’s music has the odd effect of inspiring introspection, passivity, and exuberance all at the same time. Its a record best enjoyed the way it was created — in a quiet place where one’s thoughts can roam toward any space necessary. However, I can also see it being played by new lovers on their way to the coast, or by a group of friends on a lazy day in the park. Parker may have never foresaw that fate for his recordings but (while he may not always discuss it) I’m sure he’s quite pleased that people enjoy his music as much as they do. He’s a loner, after all.
Matt Levin is an assistant editor of The Doctor T. J. Eckleburg Review.
Hair bands and heavy metal were as much a staple of the 80s/90s teens as the Beatles were to our parents, bad taste in some cases being requisite, yes, but we also experienced the iconic–give it up for Guns-n-Roses. The lesser forms certainly had something of a B-rated cult music following, but still, one must pay tribute to the lesser so rampant in our youth, if not for nostalgia then for the bevy of comical material and all those late night roller-skating birthday parties, disco balls casting moonlight and stars on the wood, hand-holding with the drum and guitar beats of Poison, White Snake…
