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Issue:
Wednesday
September 22, 2004

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In Music

Carrier

Carrier
(Hideaway Records)

By Justin Press

With Carrier, you now have some members of the Flaming Lips’ touring unit mixing it up with newcomer Marc Bennings and a few others to create ragged and road-worn psychedelia equal to — if not more glimmering than — what any of these blokes churns out with his day job. Influences are all over the place, from Americana to Mersey Beat to Haight-Ashbury, everything encapsulated in the opening track, “Finally Over Water,” from which images of Crazy Horse dancing down by the river with the Velvet Underground pop into the head. Speaking of the Horse, Neil Young — the godfather of punk — is an obvious touchstone on this eponymous debut. Thievery is a kind word to describe “November Was Hard to Find,” because “stealing” has such a raunchy connotation, but whatever you call it, it’s straight Young, lots of treble and loud.

If sad songs are the ones we remember most, then Carrier is memorable indeed. The moaning melody of “On the Lake” makes for an enchanting piece of beautifully ugly art, in which words become nothing but sounds flowing in a pretty pattern. The chiming guitar at the onset of “Colors in the Sky” rings like a child’s lullaby, the brushwork creating a desolate prairie from which heartbreaking memories rush to crowd the mind like storm clouds. This blend of mellifluous melodies smothered by sheets of noise comes courtesy of Jim Vollentine (And You Will Know Us By The Trail of The Dead ..., the Meat Puppets). Without even knowing the guy, you could surmise that he’s not a happy camper.

Carrier pulls off that type of sound that makes music such a rewarding misery sometimes: shimmering tones, haunting pianos, subtle rhythms, and the cry of a voice alone in the world. As “Once Around The Parking Lot” fades to a quick stop, we are suddenly jerked into the realization that music is still fundamental to our constant desire to always be a little disillusioned, a little isolated, and a little tragic. — Justin Press

Red Animal War

Polizida
(Ice Planet)

By Justin Press

From the first few feedback-riddled notes of Polizida, it’s clear that Red Animal War isn’t interested in being pigeonholed into any easily definable genre. Nearly every song goes in a different direction. Yet there is one unifying color — aggression.

The opening track, “Satellites,” juxtaposes squall and roughshod beats against a smooth set of melodies. The undertow of “Violet” rumbles, as the guitars shift and turn yet somehow always find their ways back to the center. The gloomy touch to the beginning of “Conscription” spills into raw vocalese, littered with rough edges. And “Lung in the Hollow” swings with a fat low-end riff that plows through the track like a blunt sickle on wheat.

This is an album full of moods and atmosphere, claustrophobic at times, but open and bright, too. It’s depression music for weekend manics. The finale to Polizida is “Question,” in which the droning rhythm throughout lands on your noggin like repeated hammering — or like getting your ass kicked by life day after day.

If you’ve grown nauseous from shoegazing, Polizida may be the cure to your illness.

— Justin Press