Thursday, March 20, 2003
Copyright © Las Vegas Mercury

Listening Station

Folk Implosion

The New Folk Implosion

If you've heard of the Folk Implosion, it's probably because of its unlikely breakout hit "Natural One," which appeared on the soundtrack for the controversial 1995 film Kids. But in indie rock circles, the frontman of the Folk Implosion, Lou Barlow, is a prolific avatar of lo-fi music. Barlow got his start as the bassist for Dinosaur Jr in the late '80s (nobody got along in the band and Barlow was eventually kicked out). Since then he's produced music under a variety of band names, including Sebadoh, Sentridoh and his own name. He's among the legions of indie musicians churning out recordings in their bedrooms and releasing them on cassettes or 7-inch EPs.

With his latest project, Folk Implosion, Barlow began experimenting with samples, and the catchy electronic groove of "Natural One" catapulted it to Top 40 radio. The Folk Implosion landed a major-label deal with Interscope, but its 1999 album One Part Lullaby did not find a large audience. On this new album, Barlow offers a stripped-down, no-nonsense set of melodic rock. "Fuse" exhibits the barebones nature of the album, a slowly unfolding grunge rocker featuring only guitar, bass, drums and Barlow's neo-Eddie Vedder vocal. Barlow's songwriting skills shine on "Brand of Skin," one of the album's stronger tracks, while "Pearl" and "Easy" are acoustic charmers. "Releast" is pleasantly reminiscent of '70s progressive rock.

But for all Barlow's earnest songwriting and cleverly complex musicianship, The New Folk Implosion as a whole comes across as flat. It's polished, seriously wrought music, but it doesn't inspire, enrage or entrance--it just kind of lays there being competent.--Geoff Schumacher

AFI

Sing the Sorrow

Until now, AFI was left to its own devices, known largely as a Berkeley punk act with a penchant for the darker side of things and an unwavering cult following. Since it jumped from Offspring singer Dexter Holland's indie label, Nitro, to David Geffen's Dreamworks music arm, things have become more complex for the quartet. Lately, the mainstream has accepted punk on the condition that it is bratty and suburban (Blink-182), or pretty and suburban (The Donnas). How do you market a gloom-'n'-doom, mascara-caked band that feels gutter punk, sounds metallic and looks Goth?

AFI isn't making life easier for the Dreamworks publicity machine, as its long-awaited album, Sing the Sorrow, is wholly uncategorizable. Taking elements from classic punk, hardcore, late '80s hair metal, industrial, Britpop, opera, classical and stadium rock, the band--assisted by knob twiddlers Butch Vig (Nirvana, the Smashing Pumpkins) and Jerry Finn (Rancid, Green Day)--has made its most intricate and distinctive effort to date. It's also the 10-year-old act's most grandiose, an accomplished work bookended by orchestral swells that conjure importance, ambition and drama. It's envisioned like a concept album, and it makes the case that AFI has inadvertently stretched the boundaries of punk rock even further.

What makes Sing the Sorrow feel so inspired--or pretentious, depending on your musical principles--is how it pilfers from various pop subgenres and unifies its booty into a coalesced, original, fully realized sound. Or, the way the band changes up rhythms and chord progressions, never assuming the hyperfocused drone of most underground punk. Or, the way singer Davey Havok naturally goes from a scream to a sigh, fists above his head one moment, tied behind his back the next. Or, the strength and consistency of the songwriting, from the single "Girl's Not Grey," to the two melancholic hidden tracks that are the album's biggest surprises.

Some of the bombast is laughable; its quieter moments border on precious; and Havoc's vocals occasionally fall into overwrought clichés. Those shortcomings will make the haters seethe deeper, but for the devoted and unbiased, there are few distractions strong enough to knock the focused scope of such transgressive grandeur.--Mike Prevatt

Blood Brothers

Burn Piano Island, Burn

Damn. You don't even have to hit "play" (and, most likely, immediately curl into a fetal position as The Blood Brothers rock you right in the sac) to appreciate this Seattle five-piece's twisted-toon sensibility. The song titles testify well enough on their own: "Guitarmy," "Fucking's Greatest Hits," "Ambulance Vs. Ambulance," "Six Nightmares at the Pinball Masquerade"--but the music has the real kinks. Burn, Piano Island, Burn smokes with some truly original concept-core that sounds like Fugazi getting its pious asses royally kicked in an alley by Pussy Galore. Wormed through and through with daft, tuneful chaos, the Brothers' debut album is equally suitable for both deep-thought headphone seshing or just blasting it in bloody chunks from your shitty car stereo.

Much of the madness comes through in the dueling vocals of leadmen Jordan Blilie and Johnny Whitney--one of them bleats in a crazily girlish voice, the other merely screams--as well as the twiddly guitar lines and plasma-drenched hooks that occasionally break through the thickly laid mulch of atmospherics, change-ups and all-around sonic bombast--put forth by the band less as a signature than some bizarre compulsion. Choice tracks: the bounding, bipolar "Fucking's Greatest Hits," the Brillo pad-scrubbed would-be pop of "Ambulance Vs. Ambulance"--complete with plinks of a toy xylophone--and "Denver Max," a truly creepy song about a child molester ("My name is Denver Max/ I eat heart attacks/ Please excuse my mask/ Running down my face/ Bound by tacks and paste.") Victims of the loathsome earnestness of emo or the overstyled neo-"garage rock" would do well to punch themselves in the face and hop on the courtesy clue wagon piloted by these Seattle madmen.--Andrew Kiraly