Friday, February 18, 2005
Mob Stereo, Too Young to Go Steady
Mob Stereo, Too Young to Go Steady. Dollar Record Records
Sort of simple lo-fi punk in the Ramones/CBGBs/'77 sense. The amp buzz is present throughout. Fuzz guitar. There's feedback. These are pretty much just straightforward songs, no pretense, no frilly decorations, no new technology. Guitar, bass, drums, singing.
However, I'd say I'm still not entirely sure if this will ever elicit any singing or dancing from me. That's the only problem. But it still sounds cool. It's difficult enough to manage that. I think the dancing/singing is dismayed by the sort of "artiness" of the band.
I'm not sure that I would necessarily personally use the word "art-y" with too much emphasis for this band, only flippantly, but at the same time, I could see it being really easy to drop the artpunk bomb here. I suppose there are moments on the record where they lean more towards the strange/noisey and more towards the melody and pop, even though both are present throughout almost the entirety of the record. The songs sound sort of unusual (which is to say, most are not at all hook-y or catchy), and they go at them with an almost dirge-like pace.
Now, I would not under any circumstances refer to them as "slowcore" or even "slow." Maybe "moderate-core." If they played the songs at twice the speed I would probably go nuts because that's me, but maybe other people would be more into it at this tempo. The record starts off with a solid rocker, and is followed by three great rock songs. One being a particular favorite of mine, "Bubblegum and Binders."
They really bring out the legitimate dirges about halfway through the record with "Shock Corridor" and "Revolution." "Divorced" certainly picks up the pace, but the dirge section goes on for one more song, "Nightwire."
And then there's more art punk. More cool sounds. Three tracks, exactly (two tracks off of their seven inch, also on Dollar Record Records, which has fucking awesome art in my opinion). One more dirge (too many now, I think), and another nice little pop song to top it off.
Now, these guys and gals could go in a few directions from here. I wonder, maybe that was the idea. In that case, it's a pretty good mission statement, because this record is pretty varied, but each track sound unmistakably like Mob Stereo, as opposed to any other band. ¶ 6:00 PM
Mob Stereo, Too Young to Go Steady. Dollar Record Records
Sort of simple lo-fi punk in the Ramones/CBGBs/'77 sense. The amp buzz is present throughout. Fuzz guitar. There's feedback. These are pretty much just straightforward songs, no pretense, no frilly decorations, no new technology. Guitar, bass, drums, singing.
However, I'd say I'm still not entirely sure if this will ever elicit any singing or dancing from me. That's the only problem. But it still sounds cool. It's difficult enough to manage that. I think the dancing/singing is dismayed by the sort of "artiness" of the band.
I'm not sure that I would necessarily personally use the word "art-y" with too much emphasis for this band, only flippantly, but at the same time, I could see it being really easy to drop the artpunk bomb here. I suppose there are moments on the record where they lean more towards the strange/noisey and more towards the melody and pop, even though both are present throughout almost the entirety of the record. The songs sound sort of unusual (which is to say, most are not at all hook-y or catchy), and they go at them with an almost dirge-like pace.
Now, I would not under any circumstances refer to them as "slowcore" or even "slow." Maybe "moderate-core." If they played the songs at twice the speed I would probably go nuts because that's me, but maybe other people would be more into it at this tempo. The record starts off with a solid rocker, and is followed by three great rock songs. One being a particular favorite of mine, "Bubblegum and Binders."
They really bring out the legitimate dirges about halfway through the record with "Shock Corridor" and "Revolution." "Divorced" certainly picks up the pace, but the dirge section goes on for one more song, "Nightwire."
And then there's more art punk. More cool sounds. Three tracks, exactly (two tracks off of their seven inch, also on Dollar Record Records, which has fucking awesome art in my opinion). One more dirge (too many now, I think), and another nice little pop song to top it off.
Now, these guys and gals could go in a few directions from here. I wonder, maybe that was the idea. In that case, it's a pretty good mission statement, because this record is pretty varied, but each track sound unmistakably like Mob Stereo, as opposed to any other band. ¶ 6:00 PM
