Oh, A Place to Bury Strangers, I want to love you, but you keep
breaking my heart. When you gave a leaden performance last fall, I gave
you the benefit of the doubt and chalked it up to the venue. I'd never
been to the Middle East Upstairs before, so I assumed the room's
acoustics were dead. By all appearances, and by the sound of Exploding Head,
you were doing everything right. But after seeing you a second time at
a different club, one that I know has favorable acoustics, I'm forced
to admit that it's your fault.
But let's get specific. I stand by my positive
review of Exploding Head.
JSpace and Jono MOFO formed a solid rhythm section at the Paradise on
Saturday. However, guitarist Oliver Ackermann missed the point on
distortion. It should be an accent, not a raison d'etre. The band has
recorded distinctive, distinguishable songs, but when the distortion is
so overdone, you can no longer tell what is being distorted. It's all
just noise. So, Oliver, stop giving the tremolo bar a hand job. Let
some semblance of the melody emerge before fucking around with it.
Maybe I'll give you another chance and the band can finally live up to
the promise of its
recordings.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
0 comments:
Post a Comment