A Review of a Review
Not content to simply review records, home slice is, along with its’ penchant for purposely misspelt words, reviewing reviews! This shit is crazy, but your average album review is generally, average. {Check that poor expression}. This just may be a profound evolutionary step in the music media.
Face Control by Handsome Furs
(Why you’ve been avoiding Rolling Stone)
There’s nothing wrong with a short review, it takes a lot of skill to strip something down to its most succinct form. Of course everyone’s opinion is valid, but Kevin O’Donnell’s review of the amazing ‘Face Control’ by Handsome Furs is totally catastrophic, inept and blatantly incorrect for these eight reasons:
1. Handsome Furs debut ‘Plague Park’ was released in 2007, not 2006.
2. ‘Plague Park’ was deep, resonating and above all fucking awesome, not “an undercooked set of slopping jangle”.
3. ‘Face Control’s (White City) and (Passport Kontrol) aren’t standouts at all and they’re not anthems, they’re short interludes between songs and to single them out is ridiculous.
4. This is also why they’re written in brackets, not like a normal title.
5. And they would sound out of place on a Gary Numan Record.
6. This is not dance pop, nice try Kevin but just because something incorporates synthesizers and drum machine beats doesn’t make it dance.
7. If it was dance pop it wouldn’t be for nerds. ‘Face Control’ is the most powerful and gritty album released so far this year, detailing Dan Boeckner’s tales of angst, love and lust.
8. It’s a five star album, not three.
Did he even listen to the album?
In short, buy Face Control, love Handsome Furs, fuck Rolling Stone.
Words by Nick.
SA Waste / God God Dammit Dammit / Johnny Adams -
‘Volume One’
words by Dan.
We like God God Dammit Dammit and SA Waste. Can you tell? It’s not only because they’ve done us huge favours playing a couple of parties and that they are devilishly handsome good men but these guys make music to be actually remembered.
While some in the so-called indie scene, (hint - there’s nothing independent about marketing the shit out of your awful music using your daddies expense account), have their influences firmly set in poorly emulating the latest Hottest 100 sounds, (too late kiddo), these folks, along with a few others have their shit together, with integrity to boot. The music matters.
SA Waste blast through trad-punk anthems packed full of rough and ready vocal underpinned by a great melody and hooks, prog like changes, country noodling and clash-era style reggae politics. Punks with brains, our favourite flavour. Full length please?
GGDD bring the funk, and hard, in what is a neat production segue. The outgoing scream of the Waste introduce the throaty vocal of the Dammit, the band that should be experienced sweaty, intoxicated, and ready for love, but doesn’t need to be.
Then there’s Johnny Adams, distinctly Australian, who captures culture through observational and experiential wit in his harmonica kissed acoustic jigs.
Unfortunately we just can’t fully explore this split, there’s too much for the confines of the humble slice, but for something like $8, just go to Big Star and get it.
Links: sawaste
Links: godgoddammitdammit
Talking 'Screens' with The Mint Chicks
Q: Indie?
We're trying to get a friend to license the record from Warner. I don't mean to badmouth them, they've got bigger fish to fry I suppose. They bought the label we were signed to (Flying Nun). They begrudgingly agreed to release the record but with no promotion so we want Valve to put it out. It's our last record that Warner has us for.
Q: Vinyl?
Yes! But probably on whatever label we go with in the U.S.
Q: Missy Higgins?
She's Australian. You guys deal with her.
Q: DIY?
In New Zealand Warner have been cool. Even though they're a major, since it's New Zealand the office is still a pretty small set-up and it ultimately comes down to who is working in the office. So far they've let us have free reign and never put any wierd pressure on us and allowed us to do whatever we want. Warner Australia have been a bit different and we've found ourselves a bit overlooked, which is why we're having our friend license the album on Valve Records over there. The new album was recorded mostly in our basement in Portland and nobody batted an eyelid.
I like your zine! R
|
