Pop. 1280 - The Horror

Pop. 1280 are a relatively new noisy no-wave - and self proclaimed "cyberpunk" - band from New York, and this matters because one of my new favorite record labels, the very on the rise Sacred Bones Records, also hail from New York. In fact, Pop. 1280 are on that record label, and The Horror is their first long play release on that label.
The Horror is the sort of album that may catch you off guard, actually. My head was definitely spinning when opener "Burn the Worm" took the first few steps of the journey, and it didn't have me dizzied just because I had been listening to some extremely soft music just before.
Burn the Worm is abrasive. It's so loud that you might think to yourself that 1280 are a pretty messy band, but as you get further and further in you'll realize that these songs are technical. The songs are offset by electronic bass effects and melodies are often made by synthesizers. Everything about The Horror is mechanical in nature, and yet I can't help but feel as if I'm covered in dirt.
In fact, we've had this feeling before. Sort of. Do you remember it? It's actually called Filth, and it's a gem out of the early eighties by the legendary Michael Gira's Swans. The difference, however, is that Gira's voice has been taken out, replaced by someone younger and with more range, alongside electronic components, and, actually, somewhat less filthy lyrical subjects.
And because of these updates, The Horror might also tend to sound closer to a more modern Swans release - My Father Will Guide Me Up a Rope to the Sky - instead of Filth. That it is constantly being compared to albums by the only popular no wave band is only a curse of the genre, however. Pop. 1280 stand well on their own, and their influences aren't nearly as strong as we might make them out to be. "Crime Time" and "Bodies in the Dunes" are entirely their own songs, entirely their own ideas. Damn good ones, at that.
I'm loving this album. It's the soundtrack to my afternoons, my jogs - though I don't dare try to sleep during it. It makes me dance and it makes me laugh and it makes me a bit disturbed. Top of my list so far.
Tier: 3 [Good Shit]
[sort of curious]

Thomas Giles - Pulse

Thomas Giles is the frontman for progressive metal group Between the Buried and Me. I say "progressive metal" because I've yet to actually hear them, and don't know what they sound like, or else I'd be throwing in some larger words that might give them justice. Probably.

In any case, "Pulse" is Thomas Giles solo debut. It mixes his affinity for clean and not clean vocals with his knack for melodramatic dubstep-like synthesizers. Upon hearing this album the first time, I had not known of Giles' background. I actually had been very much dreading listening to this album. It might have been that all I knew about the album was that it was defined as "singer-songwriter", a tag I very much dislike, but for whatever reason, I had put this album off for about a month and a half.

It was immediately that the album caught me off guard of course. I had expected poppy, accessible songs lacking real content, or that didn't really mesh with me. That's what it's been like for the other singer-songwriter albums I've heard this year - PJ Harvey, Feist, St. Vincent. I blinked, though, when the opening track, "Sleep Shake", started up. It was maximal and dramatic and I could swear I heard screams in the background at one point.

Through the course of the album I was surprised and let down plenty. "Reverb Island", the second track, ended up being my favorite - there's just something about the tense acoustic strumming mixed with vocoders, something that I heard first in "Arriving Somewhere But Not Here" by Porcupine Tree, that really hits me where it's most catchy most immediately.

Though, some of the tracks, like I said, didn't really catch on so quick, or at all. "Mr. Bird" has the potential to be really cool, seeing as though the first two tracks on "Pulse" prove that Giles has the potential to really put the rock drama into something with a piano, but I can't help it that the whole song sounds like something from Chiodos - specifically their "Bone Palace Ballet" era stuff - and it sometimes you might sigh when it comes on. Other times, you might be totally up for it.

"Mr. Bird" isn't the huge hump to climb, however. No, that would be songs such as "Catch and Release", which is just dancefloor synths mixed with Giles screaming. It lasts over three minutes when it could easily stop at one or even two without testing nerves. "Reject Falicon" is alike to this in that it's very little and last much too long. The difference, however, is that it's actually much quieter, though that doesn't make it any better. Both of these songs make me, personally, feel as if Giles is trying to appeal to a younger market more interested in scenecore and electronic or dare I say: dubstep.

"Medic" almost confirms these fears with a nice pile of chords slapped on top of screaming and little else. The album makes a bit of a comeback, though, with it's closer, "Hypoxia", which gives a real nice, dreamy atmosphere, and climaxes pretty perfectly, if not predictably, and it fades out at a great spot, leaving you to really reflect on the album as a whole. I'd say if you're a fan of progressive rock, of art rock, or of the sample I left below, definitely check this out, but I wouldn't expect "Pulse" to appear on any top ten or fifteen lists at the end of the year.

Maybe top thirty.

6.7

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