Stereo Abuse With Load Records
As jaded as I become (and as of late, let me tell you folks, it's been pretty bad) and as much as I purge my music collection when I have epiphanies of sorts that render a chunk of my CD's obsolete (see my somewhat recently acquired love of harsh noise and finally hearing To Live And Shave In L.A.'s dementedly masterful two-hour span of genius The Wigmaker a good four or so years too late), there's always at least a label or two I can count on to remain consistently loyal and good to me and provide me with sonic goods that never fail to pound and massage my brain. With 5RC regrettably biting the dust, Load is doing a pretty damn good job of putting out records so unequivocally strange, noisy, and outlandish that I can sleep easier at night knowing some producer of records is out there doing some good for the world. It's been nice to see Load become sort-of visible in a larger public eye (especially in the forever impenetrable and off-putting "noise" and "noise-rock" scenes), and it’s great to see that they're not letting any fancy overground press steer them into tamer pastures.
Anyway, after bugging Mr. McOsker, I received two excellent recent releases from the label that deserve some press here, cause honestly, are the majority of Internet blogs going to take up the cause?
First off, we have Chicago six-piece The Coughs, complete with two drummers (as The Fall, Boredoms, and certain live incarnations of Ex Models have proved, multiple drummers are rarely a bad thing) and sax player, whipping through another batch of compacted, repetitious noise-punk glory. While Secret Passage asserts itself with a wee-bit more restraint than their debut Fright Makes Right, there's no way around the fact that this act is carries a brutally unassuming plot of noise-rock warfare. In as much as a band like the Jesus Lizard on the surface seems to tight to be particularly "noisy" The Coughs' retrained edges simply lull its unsuspecting victims into a false sense of security. For sure, this is atonal and pounding and frightening, but I wouldn't want it any other way.
The worst you can say about Brooklyn skronk-prog duo The USA Is A Monster and their latest Sunset At The End Of The Industrial Age is that it's pretty much more of the same: epic drum-and-guitar story prog-punk with quasi-Native American concept seemingly intact once again. Still, after the rather jarring acoustic intermission around the second half of last year's Wohaw, there’s a certain comfort in seeing Sunset stick to the duo's more traditional guns, churning out more exquisitely played twisted nuggets of ambition that are way too noisy and unhinged for the ELP set and a bit too on some alt-universe CBGB's incarnation of Crimson for everyone else. A highly gratifying listen, but still no Tasheyana Compost. That said, the 13-minute title track and "Too Many Moves" are both awesomely absurd and unruly.
What Load has for you to listen to....
The Coughs - "Dark Powers"
The USA Is A Monster - "Too Many Moves"
posted by Paul Haney @ 12:04 AM
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