Posted by tonywonder in 2010 | 0 Comments
Not So New Music
It’s worth saying that I found it through Touch and Go’s website, and was thus initially concerned that I wasn’t hearing angry-white-dude-t-shirt punk rock. “Tourniquet” starts out imitating the aforementioned angry white dudes, with a jumpy circular bass riff that should be very familiar in both tone and construction to fans of Drive Like Jehu or (T&G mainstays) Shellac or the Jesus Lizard – but whereas those bands specialized in building those tense, sparse basslines into righteous post-punk fury hurricanes (“furycanes,” which is different from “furricanes,” which are furry Puerto Ricans), this song modulates the tension generated by the loping bass and lazily-confrontational lyrics (very Albini-esque “hey man, hold your fire”) into something gorgeous and nonlinear, jammy but not self-indulgent, composed and melodic but definitely not boring, light and airy but not bad-tasting like most light-and-airy things (plain rice cakes, for instance). Think Steve Albini on antidepressants.
