PUP – Morbid
Stuff
10/10
Best Tracks: Free At Last, See You At Your Funeral, Scorpion
Hill, Bare Hands
FFO: Joyce Manor, The Dirty Nil, Meat Wave
In my
second ever post on this blog (in which I discussed my most anticipated album
releases for this year), I named Toronto punk-rockers PUP as not only one of my
favourite bands, but a group who had never released an album that wasn’t
10/10-worthy. On their third album, Morbid
Stuff, my point is proven.
In terms of
the actual sonics, there are a plethora of things to love about this record. Zack
Mykula’s drumming is fantastically creative across the board, finding ways to
play along to riffs that your average percussionist wouldn’t even consider.
Accompanied by world-class bass by Nestor Chumak (more prominent here than on
the band’s previous work), PUP’s rhythm section is unstoppable. On top of it,
jazz-trained lead guitarist Steve Sladkowski works his magic in his own
definitive, instantly-recognisable style, and thus is responsible for some of
the most memorable moments on the record; from the bridge on Sibling Rivalry to the end of the final
track, City, which features a guitar
lead consisting (rather brilliantly) of what sounds like manipulated feedback.
And then, of course, Stefan Babcock’s vocals are at the forefront of it all, as
good as they’ve ever been, with songs like Bare
Hands and Scorpion Hill (the best
track on the album, for me) showcasing the very best of his ability.
For PUP,
it’s an evolutionary step in their sound, but one which makes perfect sense and doesn’t feel at all out of place in the back catalogue. The reason for this is
that Morbid Stuff is their most
versatile album by far; they’re poppier than ever on songs like Bloody Mary, Kate and Ashley and See You At Your Funeral (the choruses
of which will be playing on a constant loop in the back of my
mind for the rest of my life). In contrast, the band’s wildest, heaviest, and
sludgiest tracks also feature on the album; Full
Blown Meltdown sounds something like a Canadian version of The St Pierre
Snake Invasion, and Closure’s
bass-heavy, stomping main riff is the size of the Empire State Building.
If you find
yourself, in the middle of singing enthusiastically along to the chorus of Bloody Mary, Kate and Ashley or Kids, wondering what exactly Babcock’s
lyrics are about, you’ll likely be surprised by how introspective, nihilistic,
and downright dark they are. From the opening lines of the first song (“Sitting
around and thinking all this morbid stuff/Like if anyone I’ve slept with is
dead”) to the existentialism of a song like Full Blown Meltdown, Morbid Stuff tackles some serious issues
head-on, and does it with pure, unfiltered venom. The juxtaposition with the
upbeat joviality in terms of vocal delivery, though, gives the record as a
whole an almost tongue-in-cheek vibe. It says, with a smile on it’s face, that
we’re all gonna die alone, and it’s alright to laugh about that sometimes.
I fucking
love this record. To me, it proves that PUP are perhaps the best band in the world
right now, and if not, they’ve definitely got a serious claim now that Morbid Stuff completes a flawless
three-album run. There's so much more I want to say about it, but for now I'll say this: this is my album of the week, and I’d be amazed if it’s not my
album of the year.
Raketkanon – RKTKN #3
8/10
Best Tracks: Ricky, Hannibal, Ernest
FFO: Battles, ZOAX, Radiohead
Raketkanon
have been, for my money, one of the most interesting musical pariahs of this decade.
Between the actual sound of their music (I always describe it as “noise rock
made by aliens”) and the nonsense lyricism, the band have rightfully garnered a
cult following who worship their oddball brilliance. They’ve also made a name
for themselves as a mind-blowing live band.
On their
third full-length, the Belgian four-piece go more experimental than ever
before. Their earlier work followed a more punky, rock-based structure, even if
it was done in the weirdest way possible. Here, though, the use of synths is
brought to the fore in a huge way, to the point that it feels like a lot of the
songs are built around them (evoking bands such as Battles and Fuck Buttons). The opener,
Ricky, for example, is a hefty,
bombastic stomper, fuelled almost entirely by a low-end synth riff. A song like Mélody, on the other hand, is a far more
understated, haunting track which uses electronic parts to accent the vocal
lines of its chorus. It's the synths which pull the album together into a
cohesive project; without them, the songs are all so wildly disparate that they
might fall apart from each other.
It’s proper
difficult to review RKTKN #3, because
it literally doesn’t sound like anything else out there (which supports my
theory that the members of the band are actually extra-terrestrial). This album
is the musical equivalent to David Lynch’s ‘Eraserhead’;
it’s so purposefully deranged and expectation-challenging that at points it
almost doesn’t make sense. Just like the film, though, the songs here slowly
sink their claws into you and get inside your head in an insidious way;
whether it’s through a languidly-paced, Radiohead-esque track like Robin or an abrasive, violent burst of
chaos like Hannibal.
Raketkanon’s
third record has to be heard to be believed, and approached with an open mind,
but at its core it’s inventive, exciting, and essential. They continue to be
one of the world’s strangest – and most morbidly intriguing – musical acts.
JAWS – The Ceiling
6.5/10
Best Tracks: Driving at Night, Do You Remember?, Looking/Passing
FFO: The Night Café, Turnover, Slowdive, Coasts
JAWS’ 2016 sophomore
album, Simplicity, is one of my
favourites from the world of British indie in recent memory. While it didn’t
necessarily break any new ground within the genre, it was just a damn good 40
minutes of laid-back, summery indie-rock with catchy pop choruses.
The Ceiling sees the band wear a far more eclectic range
of influences on their sleeve; from more prominent shoegaze-y elements across
the board to light experimentation with electronic sampling (on songs like Fear and Patience). They throw it all at the wall to see what sticks, and a
fair amount does. Do You Remember?, for
example, with its new wave and post-punk influence, roars along with surprising
virility; Looking/Passing is
progressive, climbing slowly from dreamy single-strums on reverb-glazed guitar
to an ending which sounds like a Chapterhouse chorus. Unfortunately, a couple
of the other tracks don’t reach their aim quite as effectively. The
aforementioned Fear comes across as a
little confused with itself, with a throbbing electronic bassline buried under
choral backing vocals and repetitive lead guitar, making it sound like a
discarded Coasts B-Side.
The name of
the opening track (and the best song on the record), Driving at Night, manages to encapsulate the atmosphere of the
whole experience rather well. This is an LP specially crafted for a long,
moonlit drive, because it just about manages to put across that unique feeling
of solitude in freedom. Though some of JAWS’ experiments land more satisfyingly
than others on this album, it definitely achieves the atmosphere it reaches for
overall. The Ceiling is the sound of
a band growing up, and it’s a pretty enjoyable listen.
No comments:
Post a Comment