Eric from La Corde sent me their latest single a couple weeks back and I was curious to hear what they've been up to since the last time we talked... from the sound of this one, they've been honing their cold, political post-rock sound further into another rock solid single.
A-Side, "Unmarked Doors".
La Corde never comes off as just plain angry, it's thoughtfully built...these guys feel like they have a lot of smart things to say (that sounds dumb...ed), getting more hardcore and faster, louder than something like The Wire, with a Mission of Burma style experimental guitar, messing with those minor chords... like this single note that's becoming pure rhythm, or on the other side of this verse the long, drawn out, sustained distortion. They're literally coming up with a novel way to deliver these individual notes in a sort of punk minimalism, keeping the whole thing pop sounding, even PIL in it's later moments, not ever clearly punk...
We wipe the oil from our eyes
…and that reminds me just how political they were last time, sounding even more poignant now. Still questioning why I'm ok with all the shitty things in the world, still obsessed with singles, totally pathetic.
As long as I don't start taking to the streets and doing anything about it.
B-Side's, "Virus" uses a guitar tone that combines chorus and delays in a kind of chimey synth, the vocals have that explosive yelling style that doesn't get too off-putting hardcore. Weirdly this track is coming off like I Love You But I've Chosen Darkness carrying a little bit of new wave edge...or is that just straight pop I'm hearing. They aren't afraid to let the guitar work in non-melodic ways and it goes without saying there's a big time Fugazi sound here, from The Argument era...I mean how could there not be of course, but that's just the kind of composition we're talking about here, it's got a similar restraint. La Corde aren't loud or punishing distortion just to be tough, it's a delicate singing of distortion. It takes some guts at the end here to have this instrumentation fade out, like they literally just stopped playing this live in the studio and what you hear is what you get.
You can take this rope and you can hang yourself or make some kind of snare trap under the leaves for your enemies. Your choice.
The inner label has lots of greek looking symbols and iconography, we all know how that's turning out. Smart wake up call, if there's music that can inspire anyone to do something, I hope it sounds like this.
Distributed by Resurrection Records or pick one up from these guys direct.
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