mewithoutYou- [A--> B] Life

    Doesn’t it suck being told what to think? What an ego that must take. One issue of particular sensitivity for such speech is religion [whodda thunk?!]: whether it’s the Devil Wears Prada telling me I ought to believe in god, or Cursive telling me I’m doing it right, the result is the same- preachy people sound like twits. I realize the irony of preaching about preaching; this blog is actually a ruse to find recruits for my new MetaChurch. Regardless, between both ends of the twit spectrum, there are a select few who can talk about the great beyond without judgment, and among the finest of this lot is the Philly-based post-hardcore group mewithoutYou.

    “Experimental” doesn’t really do these guys justice. More accurately, they’re about twenty different genres baked together (somehow) logically, with a ripped-from-the-heart confessional spoken word poetry glaze. Despite sounding a lot tastier, that’s not quite as easy to say. Opener “Bullet to Binary” has the sci-fi bleeps and a menacing guitar which act as a perfect set up to Aaron Weiss’ vocals, which have been reported to set microphones aflame from a distance of up to sixty feet. Each track flows into the next on A to B Life, and the followup “The Ghost” is the kick to the gut while you’re still down. Weiss channels a throatier Guy Picciotto with “You were a song that I couldn't sing/you were a story I couldn't tell/I've only ever loved myself/But I've loved myself so well” on “Nice and Blue”, where the world’s slowest pickslide sounds like splitting the spine of a brand new hardcover.

    While A to B is mostly aggressive, mewithoutYou have the good sense to quiet down here and there to make the hard parts sharper. “Everything Was Beautiful and Nothing Hurt” could pass for downbeat Pinback, until it expands into a massive alt-country crescendo. “Gentlemen” strikes back viciously after the instrumental “A” with the words “And through a garden overgrown/Oh, it's a long walk home/I said I'd not come back /Well I'm coming back-” and the pause before “And you'd better be alone” is guaranteed to send you shivering, next day delivery. This record pushes the bounds of post-hardcore by incorporating a lot of unlikely candidates (like the Slash-style solo on “Be Still Child” and the RX Bandits synths of “We Know Who Our Enemies Are”) which makes it a sometimes tough but remarkable listen.




[A--> B] Life

J.R. Ewing- Ride Paranoia

      Scandinavia, what is your problem? Between Refused and these guys, I’m halfway convinced that instead of doing the sensible thing and breeding supersoldiers, the entire Nordic region is wasting their precious time building high-pitched scream singers who excel at being both incomprehensible and grating. And if you were wondering who ‘these guys’ are, the answer is J.R. Ewing. On their second album, Ride Paranoia, they deliver a punk-infused haymaker dose of Big Black, with a healthy but less chaotic vaccination of Pg. 99. If those names mean nothing to you, something loud, dark and heavy this way comes.

    The album opens with the muscular “Repetition is Failure”, which for the first 30 seconds recalls Drive Like Jehu, before the briefest flash of Steve Albini vocals and a quick tempo change. All hell breaks loose soon thereafter, and the not-so-foreign tongue-out screaming commences, with some fairly sophisticated guitar to keep it balanced. By track three, it’s easy to treat Ride Paranoia like a phonecall from your mother- drown in out, with the assumption that you’ll be hearing more of the same. The boys from Oslo put some challenging harmony on display, and then fence themselves into it for the next thirteen tracks. To make matters worse, the record suffers from some of the blandest mixing this side of the pond, and it’s difficult to derive which parts are really carrying the song. Everything gets lost in a loose, grey mass of unspectacular and ill-produced noise. Songs like “Pre Summertime Blues” hands you a packet of gardening seeds and a spade when you were expecting to be tasting the fruits of a bands labors, e.g. there are hints of greatness that feel rushed or unfinished, which sadly, is more egregious than just making songs that suck. J.R. Ewing, you seemed like a different kind of band when we first met. We might have to see other people.

    Vocals aside, Ride Paranoia plays out like any given record Sparta have slapped their name on: there aren’t enough good parts to excuse the album's length, and in the worst of cases, its existence. No doubt , “Naked Pavements”, “Laughing with Daggers” and “Midnight Episode” are all strong tracks with an assertive, aggressive sound that could easily find their way into the hearts of punk and post-hardcore fanboys alike. However, Ride Paranoia’s 34 minutes play out like their fourth-to-last track, “The Same Exact Thing”.



Ride Paranoia