La Corde - Self Released

La Corde is 'the rope' en francais...and is that the feminine tense? 'Le' is masculine and 'La' is feminine right? That always seemed so weird of a language to actually change the participle based on what sex you're talking to. That figures...I have to be honest. I mean these days the weirdness of it is lost completely, but there was a time when the sexes were so unequal it was built into the way you communicated.
There's just weird lines there I want to make sure to avoid in my language of choice. Think of the shenanigans that happen with gender neutral people, or drag queens, post-op transsexuals....Hermaphrodites. What a mess. My advice cultures... stay away from it altogether. You will be judged years later, and annoy high school kids everywhere having to deal with the sex of an object?!!!....romance language my ass.
A band named The rope...well that's pretty ominous sounding, let's tie a noose? And it's the female incarnation of rope...I'm just going to leave that one alone entirely.

Back in Salem, on the A-Side they're creating this real interesting moody tone, it's definitely post punk, the vocals are mixed way back and delivered with a restrained At the Drive In feel. Sort of warbly, through a phaser maybe, not as direct and obscure but coming from a dark sounding place. It's a cold mix, everything sounding a little alien, but it's not minimal, there's a lot of rocking going on without relying on grimy distortion to align it with the aggressive punch you in face punk. They're going for a lot of delay, a mass of guitar packed together with bass and drums all leveled out into a solid wall. At the same time it's subtly working to undermine itself...with a little bit of that contradiction. The rock and the reality...it's not a rallying call to action as much it sounds like they're resigned to the fuck ups in history...and big surprise, it's going to happen again.
Built on a weak spot had some points I would agree with, the post punk coldness mixed with a little experimentation, it's really mired down in these waves of guitar that still manage to sound like samples coming from somewhere else, and then the energy of the whole effort makes it something to be taken very seriously.

'Urban Burqua' is my favorite side, isn't that the case with B-Sides? This screeching guitar feeding back into a delay loop, creating melody out of something seemingly impossible to control. It's a great sound. There' s a little bit of 70's theatric power guitar combined with off kilter dissonant Fugazi...the possible politics in the title kind of gives me hope that someone, however misguided it usually ends up, is still trying to effect political change through rocking the fuck out...maybe it's been doomed forever because it always looks pathetic and useless later? Or is rock just working indirectly to rile things up....but should everyone stop trying? This isn't a dance party or catchy garage, there's more at work here.

It's definitely exciting to hear where they are going, there's a huge range of possibility for this sound and I'm going to be checking back in with guys, eager for a full length.

Ordering one of these hand numbered singles can be done over at www.lacordesf.com or by contacting them direct at lacordesf(at)gmail.com.