Here the Banshees find the middle point between the litany and the epileptic fit. "Spellbound", "Into the Light" and "Arabian Nights" have an airy psychedelic vibe, while "Halloween", "Monitor", "Sin In My Heart" and "Head Cut" are feverish voodoo ceremonies, augmented by excellent guitar and percussive work, as well as Siouxsie's vocal acrobatics. Between these two approaches, "Night Shift" and "Voodoo Dolly" combine the nocturnal, subliminal threat, with the spasms of the exorcism. You could say that this a refinement of the Join Hands program, but this line-up is more convincing in it's execution. Get it here.
The Fall are at their most disjointed in Grotesque and it sounds great. Detuned guitars, instruments out of sync, clanging drums add even more mayhem to an already cacophonous recipe. Also, new ways are found to express their hysteric ramblings, like the drone-folk "New Face In Hell", the intense martial plonking "C'n'C-S Mithering", the rockabilly/ country frenzy "Container Drivers", the almost industrial "Impression of J. Temperance", the sparse electric shocks of "In The Park", the anthemic "Gramme Friday" which is a masterpiece of elaborate metamorphoses (from dark-punk, to swing and dub basslines a la PiL, to folk guitars, to almost psych-rock, to freak-out vocals) etc. Get it here.
In the post-grunge (post-Hole), post-alternative (post-Garbage) and post-feminine (post-PJ Harvey) world, Queen Adreena's mainwoman Katie Jane Garside established a turbulent environment to be in, as shown in opener "Cold Fish", an angst-ridden pop anthem, unpegged by razor-sharp feedback. The twisted lounge "Soda Dreamer" followed, dreamy and haunted, while in "I Adore You" the violent thrusts of the guitar pushed further towards what was already a tense track. Katie Jane Garside occupied a dejected territory, delineated by "Yesterday's Hymn", a ghostly trip-hop comprised of her broken baby-doll delivery, male chanting vocals, and raspy loops. Then "Pretty Polly" started as a depressed dream-pop lullaby, but was later having feedback-laden rage-attacks.More eclectic, "Yemaya" resembled a post-grunge cabaret for lost little-girls in an adult hostile environment. "Madraykin" continued to occupy a desolate territory, in what was essentially a fading radio transmission of a post-alternative serenade. These schizophrenic alternations between manic depression and rage attacks continued in "X-ing Off The Days", whose cries of agony pierced the air in what was basically a supersonic litany. The mania retreated in "Hide From Time", the little girl lost covering herself in a cocoon of psychological fortress. Alas, it was not to be, the raging mania resurfaced in "Friday's Child". The album was displaying a borderline dual personality. All these rage attacks, resulted in the same lapse of positive energy, a vicious loop confirmed by the trip-post-blues "Sleepwalking". The closing "Weeds" didn't offer any ray of hope, essentially a lament for what was a vicious circle of emotional dysfunction. Get it here.
When dance-punk was a prevailing movement in the early 00's, and before the Liars decided they were an art-rock band, they gave one of the definitive records of the genre with They Threw Us All In A Trench. It started with "Grown Men Don't Fall In The River", introduced by typical slacker-rock plucking, but soon got a kick up the butt by turning to a manic Gang Of Four-like punk-funk exercise, though it's structure was anything but stable, a trait that was also evident in the quasi-free-form and quasi-rap "Mr. Your On Fire Mr.", reminiscent of the Beastie Boys at their best, before it embarked once again in a Gang Of Four-styled chorus. Then the irregular chanting and rhythming in "Loose Nuts On The Velandrome" veered into no-wave territory, reminding of the Teenage Jesus & The Jerks' shattering "Orphans". "Tumbling Walls Buried Me In The Debris With ESG" harked back to the Bush Tetras more broad punk-funk, albeit in modern post-everything production settings, and in the end embarking in a very effective dark-punk and punk-funk jamming, proving that the Liars were above all good musicians. In the meantime, industrial gurgling electronic noise enhanced the spazz framework in "Nothing Is Ever Lost Or Can Be Lost", one of their most angst ridden endeavors. The most impressive experiment was "This Dust Makes That Mud", whose fluid structure, led by tense synthesizer lines and agonizing thrumming shrieks, harked back to such cold-wave classics such as Joy Divisions' "I Remember Nothing" and the Talking Heads' "Overload", eventually leading to a nightmarish, psychedelic loop going on for 20 minutes, from where it seemed there was no exit. Get it here.
Erase Errata were amongst the more extreme practitioners of the dance-punk movement of the early 00's, essentially harking back to the no-wave of the late 70's and the spazz-rock of Brainiac from the 90's, as introduced by "Tongue Tied". The highlight was how the lead-guitar indulged in manic geometrical shapes within the already effervescent structures of the tracks.
This practice hinted towards a schizophrenic version of math-rock, as in "Bully Mummy", which basically enhanced Ludus' program from the early 80's, further shown in "Delivery". In the meantime, the noise-funk "Marathon" felt like a more extreme version of the Bush Tetras, while also remembering the Gang of Four in "Other Animals Are #1", and let's not forget the inventor of the chaotic math-no-wave, the Captain Beefheart of Trout Mask Replica, in the multi-layered chaos of "High Society".
Following that, the sheer noise of "..." reminded of the spasms of DNA. On the other hand, "French Canadia" was pure hysterical progressive-rock. Again, Ludus was the benchmark, a characteristic that was manifesting itself as intense and groovy in "How To Tell Yourself from A Television", or obsessive and ceremonial in "C. Rex", as impressive short circuits in "Walk Don't Fly", and finally resulting in spastic electrons trying to escape the confines of the atom in "---". Get it here.
"Mother's Hour" dispensed with the long progressive complex structures of their other work, but intensified the chaotic approach. At two minutes, this raised a tribal hell, free-form guitar noise, cathartic screams, yet still was perversely danceable and groovy. The B-side, "Patient", was not as spastic, but still sounded like a lounge-jazz tropicalia band having a panic attack. Ludus prove to be a quite versatile outfit. Get it here.
A sprawling, spazztastic nerdcore no-wave attack, backed by a competent band that veers in off-kilter free-jazz and damaged ethnic mayhem (two saxophones, two drum-sets), occasionally revisiting the Pere Ubu-esque modern dance in a more dissonant form ("Gift"), and of course the Beefheart-ian damaged blues ("I Know How It Feels. Bad."), and further enhanced by the vitriolic lyrics. Get it here.
