The
end of the old year and the beginning of the new one provide a rare,
but appropriate time to look back. That means doing something Reverberations
doesn't do a great deal, re-posting previous reviews. We did so, of
course, throughout the Top 10 Countdown; three of the top 10 (okay,
eleven technically) required new reviews, but eight were previously
reviewed.
Why
do this? Two reasons: first, these are really good records, deserving
of a second look and a extra bit of love; second, it allows
Reverberations a bit more love, attention and traffic for engaging in
reason number one. You know?
Over the coming days we'll take a look at albums 11-20
(counting up after counting down!), the ones narrowly missing the Top 10
Countdown.
At No. 15, from a previous published review (April 2012), here's ...
The Men - Open Your Heart (Sacred Bones)
The
Men are men (well, you never know) from Brooklyn. And unlike your
average twenty-somethings from Gotham’s most populous borough they don’t
sound like lapsed graduate students trying to justify their career
choice to their parents by claiming their new album is a master’s thesis
on some obscure aesthetic strategy. Shit, no. They sound like a damned
rock band. This is rock as bedrock – elemental, dedicated to the
proposition that every dumb ass that queried “is rock dead?” should be
hit with a sledgehammer - as if Little Richard could ever die. I’ve
heard Leave Home (yes, borrowed from the Ramones, paragons of
college rock sophistication). I haven’t heard their earliest music.
Their new album Open Your Heart represents gravitation toward what the average rock fan might call listenable. Take that, hipsters!
But
really, they don’t sound like they give two shits. Which always makes
for great rock and roll. Ya think the Stones agonized over how Beggars Banquet would be received by an audience taught to anticipate lysergic spew? Hell, no. And by God, Open Your Heart is a sort of Beggars for
a generation raised on racket. Oh, I’ve heard little college-rocker
journalists bring up Husker Du and Black Flag and SST and Homestead and
Dischord labels and whatever else. I guess. But mostly I hear the
swirling missionary positions of everyone from the Stooges to Jane’s
Addiction (and a certain kinship with Icarus Line). And of course the
noise monkey grooving of everyone from Spaceman 3 to Sonic Youth to - I
dunno, the Swans?
The
Men aren't remarkable songwriters. The singing of guitarists Mark Perro
and Mick Chiericozzi is generally a tune-wobbly bray. And they don't
sing much. Fully half of the ten songs on Open Your Heart are instrumentals or near-instrumentals. Damned if it isn't pretty great.
Like
fellow Brooklynites Endless Boogie, The Men follow the dharma of a
certain groove. It's not a funk groove. But hey, there are all kinds of
grooves. Bo Diddley had one. John Lee Hooker. Hell, the Velvets did. The
Men don't really inhabit the same groove paradigm as Endless Boogie.
The Boogies are more blues-based, T.S. McPhee-worshipping stoner-rock
(Canned Heat, Humble Pie, Exile era Stones minus arrangements)
than the Men, whose idea of an endless jam is about one-third the length
of an Endless Boogie excursion. Plus, the Men's 'jams' are actually
pretty composed, structured, almost surgical. And their longest is just
over seven minutes.
"Country
Song," the third track, and first of the "instrumentals," is a
slow-down, chill pill, or so it functions after two raucous opening
cuts. Taking Terry Reid's "Speak Now or Forever Hold Your Peace" riff
(or part of it) into Children of the Future vintage Steve Miller
Band space cowboy jam land, it's zoned out late-night driving music.
Slide guitars swoon, when Rich Samis’s drums fall in they swing as much
as they rock (nice touch) and gradually you're driving down that
"Moonlight Mile" into a land of pure tremolo, light show heaven. When
you start the car in the morning your ears bleed, remembering just how
high you had this shit turned up.
"Country
Song" follows the opening, one-two party salvo of "Turn it Around" and
"Animal." The former is a "Ramblin' Rose" style mosh pit solicitation,
all blazing MC5/Blue Oyster Cult guitar riffery and a lyric so simple it
follows the ninth-verse-same-as-the first formula that's grown out of
the Ramones school of say it once why say anything else. 'Animal" is all
growling proof of its' title, suggesting that your pretty face is going to hell ... on the F train.
"Oscillation"
follows "Country Song" - segues right into it. At about 2:50 guitar
lines spiral into shades of Tom and Richard (Television, that fluttering
bell-like sound), or Explosions in the Sky. Of course the twin specters
of Spaceman 3 and Sonic Youth are all over these sounds, especially
Jason Pierce's reverb/echo/delay/tremolo heavy guitar sound. "Please
Don't Go Away" surges with Hawkwind over-drive and a dash of the Edge's
guitar chime; Beach Boys/Four Season's "oohs" drown out what passes for a
lead vocal. And the sound moves forward relentlessly.
The
title track, as has been widely observed in the rock writer fraternity,
is a stepchild of the Buzzcocks' "Ever Fallen in Love." Nice call,
kids. Of course y'all have missed that instead of Diggles' tart, terse,
single-note fills the Men juxtapose the basic rhythm guitar with the
roiling, arpeggiated sound of Keith Levene's playing on P.I.L.'s brand
name song ("Public Image"). "Open Your Heart" is palpably tense and as
close to pop as The Men get, at the same time.
The
lads break out the acoustics for "Candy." You can hear the lyrics once
the band unplugs. Heck, they're practically verbose for this song,
suspecting I suppose that they should say something since their finally
being heard. Evocative lyrically of "Before They Make Me Run" and
"Lonely Planet Boy" (basic atmosphere), "Candy" is about a guy who's
been "to the darkest places ... and been a total mess." But his solution
isn't a job on Wall Street, apparently. Nope, he also sings, "I just
quit my job and I can stay out all night long" - maybe a little older
and wiser this time. Here in relative repose you hear where the Men are
coming from. They are guys pushing (or pushing past) thirty, making a
racket for a (almost) living and happy to have the calling to do so.
The
calm breaks with "Cub," a pummeling tour de force of hard rock concept.
Swirling, aggravated guitar lines, reminiscent of the Manic Street
Preacher's Holy Bible, played with the crystal jag thrash of Bad
Brains. Phased harp leads to splenetic guitar leads to a near-metal
turnaround straight outta Sabs and into a wah-wah solo. All this in
about two minutes.
"Presence," title notwithstanding, is more Street Hassle than Zep. "Ex-Dreams" culminates Open Your Heart
- the most Sonic Youth-like cut on an album saturated in Thurston and
Lee-isms. Built for performance with two, separate "put your hands
together" drum breaks, it's a transcendent study in rock guitar noise,
and a fit ending to the album.
It's less brittle and distant than the band's earlier work, but Open Your Heart is hardly compromised. It's the sound of an urban rock outfit committed to the performance idiom, reaching out to its audience.
Reverberating: 8.5
