volcano! - Paperwork

2005’s Beautiful Seizure, the first release from Chicago noise rock three-piece volcano! caught the attention of critics, who were impressed by the versatile vocals of Adam With set against the sonic pastiche of thunderous drums, distorted guitar riffs, and electronic glitches. Volcano! bring more of the same in their new album Paperwork.

Musically, volcano! is pretty similar to noise rock groups Parts & Labor, Gang Gang Dance, and No Age. But there is a lot to this band that in certain ways sets them apart. Perhaps the most impressive thing about Paperwork is the vocal acrobatic performance by With. Going effortlessly from a growl to a croon to a falsetto and back again at a breakneck pace, With at times sounds like a sort of noise rock Tim Buckley in that he uses voice as another instrument. While that may seem like high praise for a relatively unknown, unproven singer from a noise rock band, one listen to the opening track, “Performance Evaluation Shuffle,” confirms that With is one exciting vocalist.

And just because volcano! use voice as an instrument doesn’t mean that the lyrics are neglected; on Paperwork, they are both bitingly satirical and cleverly quirky. The real stand-out cut here is “Africa Just Wants to Have Fun,” a savage indictment of the phony philanthropy of Bono: “You just came to shoot your load off the stage/A pacifier for a nation of beige/After your concert and at the G-8/You came to party yeah you came to get laid.”

That’s not to say Paperwork is a flawless album. Volcano! seem to fall into the almost inevitable noise rock trap of having the raucous noise becoming exhausting. When a band never lets the listener catch his breath with a little bit of a lull in the action before hitting them upside the head with a blast of noise, an album gets pretty old pretty quickly. While none of the tracks on Paperwork are terrible, it’s harder to appreciate them one after another when each prior song wears the listener down like they do. By the time the listener gets to “’78 Oil Crisis,” a great song that has a fantastic buildup over the course of two minutes, most people will have already hit the “noise rock wall” where the constant noise just seems like noise for noise’s sake, and not in the Merzbow good way.

Overall, volcano! get a lot right. Given the current state of indie rock, with artists foregoing much rocking with any kind of sincerity in favor of pseudo-intellectual sensitive-guy pretentiousness, a rock band with a bullshit detector so firmly stuck in the “ON” position is a refreshing change.

Video for volcano!'s song "Africa Just Wants to Have Fun"

MP3:
volcano! - Africa Just Wants to Have Fun
volcano! - Slow Jam 1

For streaming tracks from Paperwork and Beautiful Seizure, as well as photos, videos, lyrics, and other information, check out the volcano! website

Deerhoof's Offend Maggie: Album Review

October 10, the San Francisco based group released their newest album, Offend Maggie. Interestingly enough, although the release is somewhat a departure from traditional Deerhoof weirdness, if you will, it does follow the trend of recent experimental bands recording significantly more listenable material (see Radiohead, TV on the Radio, No Age, etc).

Offend Maggie has managed to incorporate a new element of composition that has often restricted Deerhoof to a smaller audience: Melody. Although the record is still somewhat a sonic playground for theory nerds, this is ultimately the most melodic the band has has ever sounded on record. For the first time you can actually bob your head and tap your foot to a Deerhoof record without getting dizzy or feeling like an idiot.

"The Tears and Music of Love", the very first track, sets the tone of this new direction. Complete with heavy, swooping chords; the song progresses more like a classic rock anthem than the guitar tinkering of one of the most high profile art-rock groups in modern music. Satomi Matsuzaki's falsetto voice pirouettes above and balances out the new and heavy sounds of the rest of the band. The awkward end in a minor scale is almost an afterthought on this kind of album, not commonplace as it was in the past.

"My Purple Past" and "Snoopy Waves" might be the most commercial sounding songs on the record (aside from their names that is). In addition to building drums and four and five chord based melodies, the songs also incorporate the loud vs. quiet effect pioneered by bands like The Pixies and Nirvana and used by just about every major rock band today.

Two favorites of mine off the album are tracks 9 and 10 "Family of Others" and "Fresh Born" respectively. The former feels like a 60's acoustic piece with passive male vocals as opposed to Satomi's sometimes attacking vocals. "Fresh Born" opens with an acoustic intro and jumps into a hip-hop/funk/jazz inspired riff that lasts practically until the end of the three and a half minute piece. One can't help but think that if this song hadn't been recorded about 15 years too late, it would have been an easy pick for A Tribe Called Quest to sample.

Possibly the best song on the record is the title track, "Offend Maggie". Complete with Celtic-like arpeggios (almost bagpipe-like) and powerful windmilling chords, the piece is the best example of Deerhoof's new musical direction: strange, sometimes bizarre (especially the lyrics), but always melodically conscious.

Of course no Deerhoof album would be complete without the headscratchers (see "Basket Ball Get Your Groove Back", that's all I'm going to say) but Offend Maggie is a delightful change of pace from what was/is an increasingly awkward and experimental band. If you have never listened to Deerhoof or perhaps the method behind their madness has always escaped you, now is an opportune time to start listening.

For more information on the Band/Album/Tour, visit http://deerhoof.killrockstars.com/