Album of the week: A Place to Bury Strangers
Matthew L. Reese
Issue date: 11/1/07 Section: Arts & Entertainment
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A Place to Bury Strangers
A Place to Bury Strangers
There are loud bands that exist on this planet. Then there are those bands that make the "loud" bands sound, well, fragile and tame.
A Place to Bury Strangers' sound falls into the latter category; their eponymous debut is simply ear-splitting.
I admit there was some initial skepticism felt when a sticker on the shrink-wrap warned me "this is the loudest band in New York!" and had accompanying quotes from various sources that supported the theory. Any band that has to have a sticker with such a statement must be awful, I thought, and I briefly considered throwing the CD against the wall and celebrate by laughing.
Well, I didn't, and I'm certainly glad of this decision.
This thunderous Brooklyn three-piece wields feedback and distortion with the precision that Psychocandy-era The Jesus & Mary Chain or My Bloody Valentine did. Frontman Oliver Ackermann understands how to create such a sound with effects, and for good reason. His company, Death by Audio, besides owning a musical venue and a recording studio, designs and hand-wires guitar pedals used by the likes of Lightning Bolt and Serena Maneesh--noisy bands in their own right.
The opening track, "Missing You," proclaims the bands' assertion that they are, in fact, the loudest band in New York with static-drenched drums, a reverberating bass-line and completely unregisterable guitar sounds before a shimmering guitar lead introduces Ackermann's vocals, which, unlike the instruments, are mostly clean.
The next track, "Don't Think Lover," progresses in much the same way before turning into the most melodic track on the record. The furious guitar sound, while being constant in its obvious loudness, does still have some amount of variation.
"My Weakness" uses a pitch-shifter that emulates jets taking off to destroy something just for the fun of it. "The Falling Sun," a song that starts off with the spacey feel of an M83 track before a rush of distortion makes the track crumble apart.
Closing track "Ocean"--definitely riffing on Joy Division--ends the album with another melodic post-punk hit. Guitars slide in and out of the mix and the drum's pound along with Ackermann's reverb-soaked vocals.
A Place to Bury Strangers gives justice to the forefathers of noise-pop and then builds upon them. Highly recommended for fans of JaMC and My Bloody Valentine.
A
A Place to Bury Strangers
There are loud bands that exist on this planet. Then there are those bands that make the "loud" bands sound, well, fragile and tame.
A Place to Bury Strangers' sound falls into the latter category; their eponymous debut is simply ear-splitting.
I admit there was some initial skepticism felt when a sticker on the shrink-wrap warned me "this is the loudest band in New York!" and had accompanying quotes from various sources that supported the theory. Any band that has to have a sticker with such a statement must be awful, I thought, and I briefly considered throwing the CD against the wall and celebrate by laughing.
Well, I didn't, and I'm certainly glad of this decision.
This thunderous Brooklyn three-piece wields feedback and distortion with the precision that Psychocandy-era The Jesus & Mary Chain or My Bloody Valentine did. Frontman Oliver Ackermann understands how to create such a sound with effects, and for good reason. His company, Death by Audio, besides owning a musical venue and a recording studio, designs and hand-wires guitar pedals used by the likes of Lightning Bolt and Serena Maneesh--noisy bands in their own right.
The opening track, "Missing You," proclaims the bands' assertion that they are, in fact, the loudest band in New York with static-drenched drums, a reverberating bass-line and completely unregisterable guitar sounds before a shimmering guitar lead introduces Ackermann's vocals, which, unlike the instruments, are mostly clean.
The next track, "Don't Think Lover," progresses in much the same way before turning into the most melodic track on the record. The furious guitar sound, while being constant in its obvious loudness, does still have some amount of variation.
"My Weakness" uses a pitch-shifter that emulates jets taking off to destroy something just for the fun of it. "The Falling Sun," a song that starts off with the spacey feel of an M83 track before a rush of distortion makes the track crumble apart.
Closing track "Ocean"--definitely riffing on Joy Division--ends the album with another melodic post-punk hit. Guitars slide in and out of the mix and the drum's pound along with Ackermann's reverb-soaked vocals.
A Place to Bury Strangers gives justice to the forefathers of noise-pop and then builds upon them. Highly recommended for fans of JaMC and My Bloody Valentine.
A
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