283 "s/t" CD
[self-released]
This Canadian band has existed in one form or another under various names since the early 90's, finally settling on their current name/lineup in 1998. They play a sort of raw form of obscure indie rock in the vein of a lot of the Louisville stuff that was going on in the mid-90's or so with a little bit of a Fugazi meets Jawbreaker type of thing happening in there as well. It's never really catchy or anything like that, and it's not as enigmatic as Fugazi often is, but there's a lot going on. The tracks range from less than two minutes to a whopping seven minutes, and they frequently change things up from thick distorted chords to quiet clean passages that are often driven by percussion. There's a decent amount of discordance, and also a good sense of melody and dynamics. Plus the vocals run the gamut from screaming to speaking and a little bit of singing. Overall it's really quite nice despite a few setbacks. The main thing that I feel is really having a negative impact here is the recording. It's too muddy, and that hurts because this is the kind of music that really needs to resonate. They need a really bright sound with a good balance of tones that is both encompassing and clear at the same time. But most of the tones here are pretty thick on the bass and midrange tones, so there's a lot of detail and impact slipping through the cracks. The bass tone is pretty much perfect, so they should start there and work around that. The guitars and drums have an odd distance to them, and the light distortion filter over most of the vocals causes them to stand out, but still sound a little but suffocated. They need to let the bass and the drums hold down the low-end and clear up the guitars and vocals so that something is going on at all levels: Foreground, middleground, and background. Right now I feel like everything is leaning towards the back instead of circling around as a whole. The layout is pretty nice. The typefaces are relatively consistent and I like the artwork. There are a lot of interesting colors and stylized images of human figures, along with a few photographs (band and otherwise). The front cover definitely looks the best, but the colors on the back cover are really cool. Lyrically things are brief and pretty open, but I like a lot of what's going on. "I closed my eyes for just a second and saw everything all at once. Then closed my eyes for just a second and saw nothing at all. It's reflected in the reds of my eyes and I got caught playing dead with myself again. And still we move on." There's a great deal of potential here, I really think it's all a matter of the recording. Those with less particular ears might really get into this already, but I just need something more to be able to appreciate what I know this band is capable of. (6/10)
Running time - 47:32, Tracks: 13
[Notable tracks: Where We Stand, Epistaxis, Language Game]
238 - http://www.gmlg.net/283/

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