Erick sent this over from his latest project, Family Curse on his resurrected label, Drawing Room Records, to put out two sides of an art rock, pop, power punk four piece, with Erick on vocals. Of course that many genre's dropped into one sentence is lazy of me and could be a mess, but it works in that indescribable Les Savy Fav style of being able to work with anything they come up with. It's all in service to this frenetic, epic sound.
A-Side's , "Julia Armant" has a great snare roll captured on this one, a big empty room sound, the spurs heavily rattling around in this gutsy rhythm against a jerky distorted bassline...but thats really just a tiny aspect to this multilayered pop steamroller. The punchy bass rolls around this riff, rapid fire bursts of guitar jut in throughout, the chorus literally explodes. In addition to the idiosyncratic mix of styles, Erick has that Tim Harrington emphatic, talky story delivery in a serious rocking track. There's just so many layers of disjointed rhythms, the catchiness is stumbling over itself. A double time percussion that kicks in for the chorus over this already quick beat becomes a brick wall to hurl over. They seem to never let up for a second on this impressive, almost jazzy groove, but done in a dense pop way that owes a lot to the punk attitude and delivery. Family Curse hese has insane chops...and for just a four piece? You can't imagine this level of complex sound...they're showing off serious power with a METAL double bass kick that even at their current speedy delivery is jaw dropping. This is kept up for an inordinate amount of time, looping back in for another takedown.
Not sure who Julia Armant is either? Check out this piece WFMU did about the origins.
But it wasn't until watching this video that the more psych elements of this one started coming together. A weird species of Dinowalrus? Cursive?
They just don't try to separate anything, you witness the deliberate mash, a pure blend, one of those combinations that wouldn't make sense unless you actually experienced it. The levels of talent to get to this point of being on the verge of something seriously unclassifiable.
The B-Side, "Last Days" gives the bass center stage to kick off a rough groove, which is the perfect foundation, you hear that one night before you go to sleep and rush to get it down. This one goes more post rocking the way of The Sediment Club or The Wire, anxious and jagged this time. A great repeating guitar melody that would otherwise be orphaned but they refuse to let it die...just a bunch of stubborn bastards, teasing out every last interesting variant of style, Erick doesn't even breathe... running lyrics on top of each other.
I saw you / standing / outside the gate.
I bet that means that this friend didn't make the cut in this apocolypse. The guitars are sirens, wailing at the end, echo'd vocals, warped laters of guitar, the whole thing is coming down, but dammit if they didn't tell you it was goint to end like this.
I appreciate that they have this great wrap around sticker on the lower right reminding me to play this at 45, you'd be surprised how many times you inadvertently listen to something for a while like this driving yourself crazy. I also like the fine print. Touche. Heavy green stock sleeve with download card.
Get it from Drawing Room Records who says:
Family Curse is made up of members of some great New York bands of late: punkers Golden Error, shredding post-punk duo Ribbons, and hard chargers Blood City.
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