A fabulous third LP of inventive, restlessly fast, angular, infectious experimental avant-rock by the dynamic Easthampton, Massachusetts trio of guitarist and singer Wendy Eisenberg, bassist Steve Cameron and drummer Josh Daniel. There’s a live feel to the recording, even though the band is now spread in different cities, Daniel the only member still living in Massachusetts. The title is from an in-joke about strong E-chords, but their music is far more complex than that most basic of starter fret shape. While there are some echoes of King Crimson, My Disco, Horse Lords, Deerhoof and other prog, jazz, and alt-rock favourites, everything about their sound is strikingly original, the polyrhythmic, stop-start agility breathtaking, their Eisenberg’s melodies otherworldly, as with the lyrics on the the opener and title track: “Satellites above radio echoing long delay supersonic proof aliens want to visit the earth / Black Knight Satellite, just like me, reaching out to connect 13 thousand years orbit earth get mistaken for trash”. Or syncopated The Queen: “My brain is bent sometimes it feels useless others so demanding”. Another highlight is the dreamy internal dialogue of What’s Wrong: “Stop looking for lovers / look out for lovers you can’t predict where they’ll find you … that cyclical mystic, misunderstanding gives me the key to all pleasure.” There are some pauses from the fast fingerwork of the earlier songs, such as on the darker, slower, more menacing thrum of No. But the pacy complexity soon returns with the the ear-catching abstract tinkle of of the strings about the fret on Something Sweet, the dizzy, clever anarchy and arpeggiation of Real Fire (“I’m pushing away the future we’re traveling back through time absconding with modern solitude”), the stripped-back intimacy of Flesh Debt, and the gentle build from acoustic into full rock of closer Slight Return, there’s nothing predictable and everything original about this truly rockin’ band. Out on Joyful Noise.
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