Monday, March 10, 2014

Beyond B -Town: Vertical Scratchers

Its good to broaden your horizons now and then.
When i bought the rather excellent new album by EAGULLS from Left for Dead I asked if he had any freebies, and i got given 'Daughter of Everything'. An album by a band I'd never heard of before.
www.mergerecords.com/vertical-scratchers
Having no idea what  expect other than having vaguely heard of Caribou, one of the members ex bands. I found it to be an unpredictable mish-mash of indie rock. This album contains 15 songs that barely clock in at under 3 minutes, that are all frantically strummed and drummed with in an inch of their lives by the Californian duo, and sung over in a by a voice which sounds like nothing I've heard on record elsewhere.
Each track starts. and stops suddenly. leaving the next song to follow on.
Its the sort of record that will make you (vertically) scratch your head and wonder which track your listening to. One minute mellow, one minute loud.  Its perfect for the summer but at the same time a little more complex than your average Californian lo fi indie rock, as well as more compelling. I've heard it 3 times and i still don't quite know what to make of it.
What I can say is, well done if you've already heard of them. They've gained a bit of a cult status by both being in bands that I've never heard of. but they deserve more press because this record is pretty good. But also pretty mental.

7/10 - for fans of Pavement, Nirvana, Violent Femmes

https://www.facebook.com/verticalscratchers
http://www.verticalscratchers.com/

No comments:

Post a Comment